OEMS OF THOUGHT 



A BOOK BY 17 WELL KNOWN AUTHORS 



MRS. M. T. LONQLEY 

COUNTESS CONSTANCE WACHTMEISTER 

MRS. CORA L V. RICHMOND 

PROF. C. W. LEADBEATER 

DANIEL W. HULL 

PROF. W. M. LOCKWOOD 

PROF. J. S. LOVELAND 

A NAZARINE 

REV. MJNOT J. SAVAGE 

PROF. ALEXANDER WILDER 

DR. J. M. PEEBLES 

MRS. ELLA DARE 

P. J. COOLEY 

PROF. ELMER GATES 

M. M. MANGASAR1AN 

BABA BHARATA 

MRS. HELEN P. RUSSEGUE 



i 




Class _B-E—LCl£2 
Book • r ^ 2 

Copyright N?. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



I 



eejvia op .t^oug^t 



From 



Leading Intellectual Lights. 



Educational, Soul Elevating and Spiritualizing. 



Designed to Iffustrate Certain Grand Truths Which 
Are Connected with the Spirituaf Phifosopfiu. 



COMPILED BY JOHN R FRANCIS. 



CHICAGO, ILLINOIS ! 

THE PROGRESSIVE-: THINKER PUBLISHING HOUSE 

1906. 







',- 



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<b 



LIBRARY ofX)Oi 
Two Cooies Re 

MAY 6 1906 

, Copyright Entry 
COPY B, 



Copyright 1906, 

BY 

J. R. FRANCIS. 



GEMS OF THOUGHT 



A Book by 17 Well Known Authors. 



Mrs. M. T. Longley 

Countess Constance Wachtmeister 

Mrs. Cora L. V. Richmond 

Prof. C. W. Leadbeater 

Daniel W. Hall 

Prof. W. M. Lockwood 

Prof. J. S. Lov eland 

A Nazarine 

Rev. Minot J. Savage 

Prof. Alexander Wilder 

Dr. J. M. Peebles 

Mrs. Ella Dare 

P. J. Cooley 

Prof. Elmer Gales 

M. M. Mangasarian 

Baba Bharata 

Mrs. Helen P. Russegue 

^ i 



SPECIAL NOTICE. 




Directed Solely to the Reader. 

This book is compiled from a great 
variety of minds, those who are ac- 
knowledged LEADERS in the world of 
thought. The material therein will 
prove interesting, suggestive and in- 
structive . We give the lectures of two 
NOTED Theosophists — one by Count- 
ess Constance Wachtmeister, and sev- 
eral by Prof. C. W. Leadbeater, the 
two great leading minds of that sect. 
While they are somewhat opposed to 
mediumship as demonstrated so beau- 
tifully and comprehensively in SPIR- 
ITUALISM, they place especial import- 
ance on the development of one's own 
spiritual powers — soul culture — and it 
will be HIGHLY INTERESTING for 
the reader to study those lectures, and 
thus understand wherein Spiritualists 
and Theosophists agree, and wherein 
they differ. Keep this thought before 
you when reading the book. 



INTRODUCTION. 



It is with extreme pleasure and a vast 
degree of gratification that we present 
to the patrons of The Progressive Think- 
er, and to the world at large, "GEMS 
OF THOUGHT;" a compilation of Spir- 
itual, Occult, Scientific and Educational 
expressions from some of the most not- 
ed authors and lecturers of the day. We 
feel assured it will fill a large niche in 
the desires and demands of the reading 
public by its excellent variety and quality 
of literature. 

This compilation has been executed 
with the object of touching the thinking 
public, awakening a responsive vibration, 
and leading people into the higher realms 
of thought, into the advance lines of hu- 
man and spiritual culture. Take it; read 
it, and ponder over the good and beau- 
tiful therein, and accept the kindly re- 
gards of the publisher. 



The Spirit World, Where Is It? 

Its Conditions and Employments. 



A Lecture Delivered at Masonic Hall, Washington, 
D. C by Mrs. M. T. Longley. 



"The Spirit World, where is it, its conditions and em- 
ployments," is the theme we have selected for our dis- 
course this morning. You will understand, dear friends, 
that it would be impossible in one hour or less to give you 
a full and comprehensive description and exegesis of the 
spirit world, as it would be to give you a full description 
of the various nations of the earth, the various portions of 
this planet, its people and conditions; but we trust to give 
you somewhat of an idea of the spirit world, not as an ab- 
stract condition, not as a vague something that may exist 
somewhere with no tangible manner of expression and 
locality, but a distinct world or worlds — for there are 
many of them, just as there are many of the physical 
planets floating in space, rolling along their matchless 
courses in brilliancy and with power. 

The spirit worlds that we shall deal with this morning 
are those which belong to this planet earth; that is, those 
to which pass the human entities who have dwelt upon, 
who now dwell upon, and who shall dwell upon this planet 
earth. That is quite sufficient as the theme for one dis- 
course. We wish to say here that every planet inhabited 
by human entities in this broad universe of space has its 
own spiritual environment — its own spirit worlds, to 
which pass those human beings who belong to that par- 
ticular planet. 

First, we shall say that spirit life is a reality; spirit 
life is real life. The life of spirit is everywhere, conse- 



2 THE SPIEIT WOELD. 

quently spirit life is right here in this room to-day, just as 
much as it is out in the great fields of space where many 
disembodied spirit entities dwell. You are spirits and are 
making your own lives day by day, creating your own con- 
ditions and environments, and living in spirit life just as 
much in one sense as you ever will in the great ages of the 
coming time. The spirit world is as real, as tangible, and 
as important and useful as is the planet earth or any phys- 
ical planet that belongs to your solar system. 

We shall say spirit worlds, for there are worlds. 
You may call them spheres, you may call them zones, you 
may call them anything you please that means tangible, 
palpable worlds. Very often spirits and those who seek 
information through mediumship confound the terms. 
Spheres are conditions. You make a sphere for yourself. 
You may live in a sphere of harmony, you may live in a 
sphere of discord, you may live in a sphere of art or sci- 
ence, and you may create for yourself a distinct sphere 
just as you create for yourself a distinct aura or magnetic 
environment which belongs to you and which will touch 
upon the environments or spheres of other individuals. 
So if you are dwelling in the sphere of art, or music, or 
science, or mechanics, whichever it may be, you may also 
touch upon other lives and the magnetic forces of individ- 
uals who are dwelling in a similar sphere of art, or music, 
or science, or mechanics. Therefore we desire you to hold 
this thought distinctly in mind; that spheres are creatable 
things; that you can create a sphere for yourself, dwell in 
it, and come in touch with others who are in the same rate 
of vibration, who are in a similar sphere or condition. 

And then we have that which we personally would call 
zones or belts, but which many returning spirits and 
many Spiritualists call spheres, so that for convenience we 
will use the same term. There are surrounding this 
planet earth great zones or belts— which you may call 
spheres if you will — that are created by spirit forces and 
which are to a measure enfolded with and impinged upon 
by electrical, magnetic and even material forces from 
human beings here upon this planet or dwelling in those 
various zones or spheres. 

Then there is still another spirit world, which we shall 
touch upon in a moment, but before that we will say that 
the first belt or zone surrounding this planet earth is cre- 
ated very largely of material elements or atoms thrown off 



THE SPIRIT WORLD. 3 

by spirits in these mortal forms and they go out into this 
sphere of vibration of the first belt or zone. To this 
sphere gravitate those spirits who are not especially spirit- 
ualized, who are filled with elements that belong to the 
earthly condition. They have not unfolded a spiritual 
nature, and not having done this, they have not built up 
the spirit body of more ethereal atoms or forces, but the 
spirit form or covering is largely made up — wholly, we 
might say — of these more material atoms and elements 
which belong to the grosser life; consequently that sphere 
or world is of a dense, murky atmosphere compared to 
those of a more refined condition, because made up of this 
dense, murky material and only those dwell therein who 
are of a like character whose spirit bodies are made up 
largely of the earthly material, of the grosser elements, 
and who are unable, because of the law of gravitation, to 
rise to a higher or larger and more outward sphere. 

Emanating from this first sphere is another surround- 
ing of a more refined character — more spiritual, yet not 
ethereal — because there has been going out to it some- 
thing better than went out to form the first or lower 
sphere as it is called, and this second — if we may so term 
it — is composed of more refined elements and material, 
and those who dwell therein are such as are a little more 
spiritualized, a little purer and more aspirational than 
those who are tied to the earthy sphere. 

There are spirits who when they go out of the mortal 
body are at once qualified to enter the second sphere, and 
they pass through and beyond the first without any con- 
tamination, without knowing anything about the lower 
condition; and there are also those who become better, 
more purified, who have for a time dwelt in the first 
sphere, and they are, as it were, permitted or made ready 
to soar into the second condition or locality which we 
must designate just now as the second sphere. And so on 
through various gradations, each succeeding one in a 
manner further from the earth, until we find an innumer- 
able number of spheres that are reaching out further and 
further into space and nearer and nearer in touch with 
the outward and grander circles or spheres or worlds of 
some other planet. 

If we could go to the outermost circle of this wonderful 
system of worlds of progressive life we Bhould undoubt- 
edly find ourselves coming in touch with the outermost 



4 THE SPIRIT WORLD. 

etherealized condition, locality, or sphere of some of the 
grand and beautiful planets which are moving along their 
course in space. 

But we have another world to deal with, just as we have 
with these innumerable forces of spiritual, tangible or 
human habitation, and this we call the spirit planet. Now 
we dare affirm — and it is not the lady whom you see with 
your mortal eyes that is making this statement, for she 
knows nothing of these things, being tied to a mortal body 
just as you are with your experiences and conditions, but 
it is the spirit individual who has for many years dwelt in 
the spirit world and who has studied these laws and con- 
ditions, while at the same time seeking to do some good to 
human beings here and in the lower spheres; but I may 
be to you only a voice, a voice speaking out of the great 
spiritual atmosphere of the universe and asserting these 
things which are given to you to-day; a voice coming from 
the spiritual world being used only as a vehicle for the 
knowledge which has come to that individual in the spirit 
through persistent study, by observation and experience, 
and by contact with innumerable souls who are traversing 
space on every hand. So we dare assert that there is a 
spirit planet belonging to this planet earth, and not only 
that this earth has its spirit planet, but that every in- 
habited planet in all this wondrous universe has its spirit- 
ual planet which accompanies it through space and can 
never be separated from it under any circumstances. 

More than this: We declare that this will be scientifi- 
cally established before the close of the twentieth century. 
We believe that scientific research along the line of astro- 
nomical power and progress will have so far advanced as 
to be able to discern with its apparatus, with its far-sweep- 
ing glance and search of the heavens, the spiritual planet 
which accompanies each one of the planets in your solar 
system, and that an inhabitant standing upon Mars, or 
some other planet in the solar system, will be able to — and 
who knows but this may already have been done? — clearly 
discern the spirit planet which accompanies this planet 
earth in its march through space. 

Well, then, where is the spirit planet of this earth? It 
is, as we have said, just as palpable, just as real, important 
and useful as is this physical planet which you are pleased 
to call the earth, and is its counterpart. Everything in 
creation that we know anything about has its counterpart. 



THE SPIRIT WORLD. 5 

This is true in the spiritual life and in the material. The 
planet of which we are speaking has its counterpart here 
in the mortal. The spirit counterpart is a force more re- 
fined,more ethereal; it traverses the great circle of ethereal 
life and is made up of ethereal forces and gases and ele- 
ments which belong to the atmospheric condition of the 
ether, and not of this circumambient air with which you 
are familiar and which you breathe in every day. The 
spirit planet is not here, close to the earth, inside so to 
speak, and environed by that lower sphere which we call 
the lowest sphere, nor the second, nor the third, but in 
the great space of ether between them. You may call it 
the sixth sphere and the seventh sphere; this great spirit 
planet exists and there is a magnetic cord, if we may so 
term it, that extends from the physical planet earth to 
that spiritual planet and which is in contact, there being 
no separation of its elements from the earth or from the 
spiritual, but this great magnetic cord of light and of 
spiritual clement passes down thnugh these various 
spheres or circles or belts of spirit life and activity which 
surround this particular physical body. 

But see the spirit planet out there in space. It moves 
closely, clearly, beautifully with this planet earth which is 
attached to it, and is made up of ethereal elements that 
have been thrown off from the planet and by the various 
ci-cles which surround this planet and is composed of 
rarefied and beautiful elements that make up its body and 
its life. Upon that planet spirit beings dwell, and those 
who dwell there are capable of living in what may be 
called the seventh sphere — there is a connecting link be- 
tween the sixth and seventh spheres — they can traverse 
space and all spirit spheres as high as the seventh; some 
of them can reach out clairvoyantly — not physically — to 
those higher worlds. Xow remember what we are telling 
you, because this is important, if you want to know about 
spirit life, its conditions and localities. We cannot tell 
you how many miles these spirit worlds are from the 
earth; some of them are millions of miles; some, especially 
I his one of which we have spoken as the lower sphere, are 
close to you. Inhabitants of those near you can approach 
your atmosphere and impinge upon you and very often 
Bap you of vital forces thai you need for your own protec- 
tion. 

These worhl.- exist. We know these worlds — you may 



6 THE SPIRIT WORLD. 

call them spheres if you like — merge one into the other, 
the first into the second, the second into the third and so 
on, therefore there is really no line of demarcation; yet 
those who pass from one to another pass through just as 
great a change of progressive life as you would if you were 
to pass to-day out of your physical body into this other 
world, because the spirit body itself, the spirit entity, 
must become freed from its grosser elements and con- 
ditions before it can reach into another higher and more 
ethereal planet. Remember, dear friends, that there is 
no up and no down to spirit life and the spirit world. We 
do say that our friends dwell "above;" we do ask them to 
come "down" into our life and to help; we do sing of the 
land "above" with its beauty and fragrance, and in the 
sense that it is above and beyond the material we can say 
that these high spiritual spheres and these beautiful spirit 
planets are "up there;" but in reality there is neither up 
nor down, because it is out in space and within the orbit 
of the spirit planet and the spirit spheres which extend 
outward always and ever from the planet earth; therefore 
-there is no up nor down, no high nor low, only the 
Beyond, but outward the spirit circles and onward 
forever; that is spirit, and that is spirit life. 

The spirit planet which is the counterpart of this world 
may be said to find its place and its orbit in the great 
spaces of ethereal life between the sixth and seventh cir- 
cles or spheres of spiritual activity, and is dwelt upon by 
individuals who are helpful to their fellow men. Many, 
many of them gravitate there immediately at the death of 
the physical form, because their aspirations, their en- 
vironments, their words, their thoughts, have given them 
the impetus for helping them to form the spirit bodies 
and the spirit home out there that will enable them to 
reach the spirit planet — the sixth or seventh sphere — and 
dwell in those beautiful places and among the harmonious 
conditions of those worlds. 

It is not necessary for you to go into the first, second, or 
even the third spiritual world or sphere and then grad- 
ually, painfully work onward to a higher and more out- 
ward one, but you can do that; if you are not prepared to 
ascend higher you will have to do that. Many who are in 
earth will have to do that, because it rests upon their en- 
vironments and life or growth and what is sent out from 
their bodies and minds day by day whether they create the 



THE SPIRIT WOKLD. 7 

hard conditions of the lower spheres with which they 
must contend and overcome before they pass outward, or 
whether they create the more ethereal, more beautiful 
conditions and elements of the spiritual bodies which en- 
able them to float outward and rise into lovelier con- 
ditions and find more delightful homes. 

We will at this time liken the spirit planet to the sixth 
or seventh sphere, because those in the sixth sphere can 
very easily pass on to the spirit planet, if they so desire, or 
can find just as beautiful homes on the sixth sphere and 
can pass just as easily to the seventh, so they can mingle 
and commingle as one beautiful family. There is no line 
of demarcation between them; they can come and go at 
will. They can also come and go to and from the planet 
earth at will, right into the outer spaces or spheres of 
spirit life, and labor with those who need them as they de- 
sire. They can come and they can go at their work, give 
their thoughts to stimulate minds to something higher 
and better here and elsewhere, and make life happier and 
sweeter. 

I have been to the spirit planet myself, and am person- 
ally familiar with it, and it typifies higher conditions in 
these loftier spheres. As we have said, there are in- 
numerable spheres. 

There is no use for a spirit to come and tell you he lives 
in a particular sphere or is as high as he can go. There is 
no cessation to unfoldment or progression, and there 
never can be, or there would be death to the soul. There 
must be continuous outward growth in order for the 
spiritual human entity to continue to advance in greater 
powers of achievement and growth into grander glory, 
coming nearer to the Infinite. If a spirit entity comes to 
you and says that he lives in a certain sphere or on a cer- 
tain plane and is as high as he can get, or even has to at- 
tain only one or two more in the great universe of space, 
you may set him down as knowing very little of what he 
says, as one who has not attended well to the teachings of 
the spiritual world, and that he is not what he claims to 
be, or at least he has not attained the height he claims to 
have attained, for if he has grown outward as far as he 
claims, he will know very well there are great spheres of 
activity and knowledge that have been attained by human 
entities who have lived thousands upon thousands, even 
millions of years, in space, and are still pressing forward, 



8 THE SPIRIT WORLD. 

and no one who has heen upon this planet in mortal form, 
with a mind to have attended upon these conditions of life 
within the last century, can possibly assert that he has 
come in contact with some of these outward spheres or has 
reached the same; consequently, if he comes to you and 
tells you he knows not what is the vastness of life in spirit, 
knows not and cannot tell what is to be attained by the 
unfolding human entity, but that there are worlds upon 
worlds beyond him out there in space that sometime every 
human creature may gain, you may know that he is a 
teacher, that he will give you the truth and you may listen 
to his words. We never yet have heard of a human entity 
who has gained perfection, who has learned all there is to 
learn in the universe, who has attained the grandest of all 
knowledge and wisdom, and until one has gained perfec- 
tion and is infinite himself, is like the All-Supreme, 
Overflowing, Omnipotent Power, and, therefore, GOD, 
can he possibly tell what there may not be beyond him for 
exploration and achievement. Question seriously any 
spirit who comes to you claiming to know all there is to 
know, having gained all there is to learn; because it is im- 
possible, only the Infinite can do that, and the Infinite 
cannot or will not communicate through human entities 
or genius of any kind, but the inflowing of the great in- 
finite spirit is ever downward and downward through 
gradations and gradations of human conception and hu- 
man understanding, and we have to receive just as we are 
prepared to receive and comprehend. We could not com- 
prehend it if it came from the Infinite directly. We can 
only comprehend what we are adapted to receive and 
fitted to understand, and it may be given to us through 
the lips of a little child, through the inspired utterances 
of a humble being standing before you to-day to speak of 
the various conditions and grades of life that may touch 
you from the great beyond. 

The spiritual planet is a real world, a palpable world, 
not an abstract thing, not merely a condition with no 
homes, employments or activities such as human beings — 
you and I — wish to create, to accomplish, to bring to bear 
as an influence upon human life. There are human 
spirits who live so largely in the subjective that they 
hardly become conscious of their environments and con- 
ditions — to the objective. But there are gradations of 
objective life that are just as real to the beings who deal 



THE SPIRIT WORLD. 9 

with them as are these conditions of objective life around 
us, as this plant, or the table, or chairs, or the hall itself, 
are to you human beings in your physical forms dealing 
with objective things, and those in spirit life are just as 
real and substantial to them as these are to you. 

The spirit planet, then, is made up of very many rare- 
fied, ethereal, beautiful, and, as compared with those on 
this planet, intensely spiritual elements, but none the less 
they compose objective life upon that planet, and the hu- 
man beings who are there are the real workers. There are 
plenty of human beings in some of the lower spheres who 
are idlers, who do not feel the necessity of working. They 
cannot die; they cannot starve to death or perish for want 
of food and shelter, but they can starve magnetically and 
may be depleted of that which goes to make up real life. 
There are many who are idlers until awakened to their 
condition and willing to do something, to be active and 
begin to throw off those conditions and elements that 
weigh them down, and they do so by wishing and trying 
to become better. But on the spirit planet, in these 
higher spheres, all are workers, even the children; and 
there are beautiful children there, many of them taken 
out of the slums of earth life, out of the homes of poverty 
and degradation — taken to that spirit planet and trained 
for work. Even they become workers, and many of your 
messengers who control the mediums and give you tokens 
of love from your spirit friends are dwellers on the spirit 
planet. 

Let me tell you one thing that is a fact: In all the con- 
ditions and environments, in all the life of the beings on 
the lower sphere — this sphere made up of dense earthly 
conditions — there is no sign of childhood; no children are 
there. No matter what the conditions, no matter how 
degraded the life in which they come, no matter how ter- 
rible their environments and home training, no matter if 
they run the streets with filthy and ragged garments, with 
oaths upon their lips, the little poor children that are 
growing in your city slums, and to whom society here on 
earth should give shelter, protection and training, they 
are not waifs in the lower sphere of the spirit world. 
When they pass out from the body as children, anywhere 
from the earliest days of infancy to the years of responsi- 
ble discretion, crushed out by conditions of earth life, 
they are taken in charge by tender, loving souls of the 



10 THE SPIRIT WORLD. 

third or higher spheres or of the spirit planet and con- 
veyed there to homes or sanitariums to be trained. There 
the influence and love given to the children make them 
grow into beautiful workers, helpful messengers to earth 
and its people. You may say, "What of their spirit 
bodies, are they not made up of the physical elements that 
will tie them down?'' No, those little spirit bodies are 
made up largely of the magnetic forces that are sent to 
them by the vibratory influence of the higher teachers and 
missionaries of the spirit world, and all of the earthly 
material that is taken into those spirit bodies is simply the 
vibratory action of earth forces which has not the impetus 
and power with the children it has with those who live 
vicious lives for years in carnal conditions, and, therefore, 
it is soon eliminated under the care and training of the 
spirit teachers of the higher life. 

You may understand something of the terrible con- 
ditions the lower sphere may have brought to human be- 
ings who can awaken to a sense of responsibility and to a 
realization of the conditions they are in when we tell you 
no flowers are there. 

No flowers grow in that lower sphere. No children, no 
beautiful little human blossoms are there to give cheer 
and courage or call a smile to the faces of those who live 
in the lower condition. Those who live there go to their 
own places, for they have built the very world in which 
they live, they and their kind, and they can no more help 
going there than a stone that is dropped from the plat- 
form can help descending to the floor. They do not de- 
serve the children and flowers. When they awaken to a 
sense of their condition, they are willing to reach out and 
ask for help, to work and to eliminate those forces which 
hold them down and prevent them from going where the 
flowers grow. 

On the spirit planet there are children, thousands of 
them, beautiful children. Some of the most beautiful 
children are those who have been little outcasts or waifs 
upon earth. They are touched by the love elements, and 
that brings out the love element within, and they grow up 
as sweet and beautiful as lilies of the valley, scattering 
their perfume throughout the world. They are trained 
as workers; they desire to work. 

Some of our Indian friends who come to you as messen- 
gers, through your mediums, dwell on that spirit planet 



THE SPIRIT WORLD. 11 

or on the spheres akin to it, and they find their happiness 
in doing good. They come to yon, and go to the lower 
spheres, and help with a sweet simplicity that brings 
blessings to all. 

Teachers and workers, your mothers — sweet, unselfish 
mothers — are there, and on high ground, as we call it, 
sending out their influence. Some are teachers, some are 
care-takers of children, some are working in the beautiful 
gardens where they do not have to pull up the weeds, for 
there are none. Human magnetism makes the flowers 
grow, and if you neglect them they will die — that is, they 
will be dissipated into the atmosphere; you will not have 
any dead leaves left to cumber the ground, but the whole 
thing will be dissipated and lost as far as the outward 
sense is concerned, yet not lost, for they will be taken up 
again and into them will be breathed new life. Some of 
the dwellers here are gardeners who take care of the 
flowers by breathing upon them and in that way mag- 
netizing them. Human magnetism is life-giving. Some 
take care of the grounds; some erect buildings. Yes, we 
have buildings, and there are those who can erect the most 
beautiful buildings, but do not need to put into them the 
materials used in the physical world, or use upon them the 
crude implements of earth, but they have the chemical 
knowledge which enables them to bring together the 
atoms which exist in the universe and create the sub- 
stances which go into the dwellings of the spirit people. 

These are beautiful employments, with none of the 
drudgery and the hard, fierce, terrible competition that 
comes to human beings who have to do their daily work 
perhaps ten or twelve hours at a time; but sweet, con- 
genial employments, with all material at hand with which 
to do their work and do it well. Artists are there who 
paint the most glorious pictures for the contemplation 
and inspiration of the people, and they can do it without 
brush or paint pot, for from the roses and lilies around 
they form the coloring of the whole life that surrounds 
them;. they can extract this coloring and mingling it with 
the atmosphere produce the pigments and the various im- 
plements and substances which they desire, and can paint 
even the portrait or the landscape upon your wall. There 
are those who can do even more than this. They are so 
highly unfolded and can bo concentrate their powers and 
direct the elements of material forms that they can by 



12 THE SPIEIT WOKLD. 

waving their hands and concentrating their wills bring 
out the picture for your contemplation. This may seem 
very strange to you, but it is all true and scientific, and we 
know it to be a fact, for we have seen it time and again. 
Some of these things we have taken a part in, and know it 
is a Godlike truth that man not only is immortal but is 
infinite in his power of expression and achievement as he 
unfolds, advances and rises step by step through self- 
effort, self-culture and growth to the uttermost bounds of 
power and of possibility. 

These things, I say, are just out there, a little way from 
where we are speaking, on the spirit planet, in those outer 
circles of life. And what is beyond? Who shall ask? 
Who shall say? What is beyond all this in grandeur, in 
infinitude, in power? 

Here, where these beautiful things exist, all gravitate 
to their own places. You will gravitate to your own just 
as sure are you are here to-day, if you are spiritually un- 
folded and are seeking that which is pure and good and 
true as you go along in your daily life. 

Sculptors are there who never dreamed of making even 
an image or statue here on this earthly side, but they have 
it now. Some of you are natural sculptors, but perhaps 
you never have had an opportunity to make even a little 
clay model, and if you should attempt to do it the result 
would seem a very crude image and you might have to 
label it to tell what it is, but you have it there within, and 
just so sure as you have the talent and aspiration without 
limit, just so sure will you in time, perhaps not at once, 
but soon when you are ready for it and have studied 
enough for it, you will gravitate to that plane, that con- 
dition that will give an impetus to the indwelling power. 
At first you may make only little clay models, which you 
can do in spirit life; you can make this clay out of the ele- 
ments there and mold it into form, and you will begin in 
that way, and by and by you will be able to draw the sub- 
stance to you from the atmosphere and breathe into it 
your magnetic life, for everything there is breathed upon 
by the magnetic life from human intelligences who are 
pressing Godward, and that gives life to every creation to 
be found there, and you can breathe into the substance 
gathered from the atmosphere, and flowers will form, or 
anything that exists, according to your will and concen- 
tration. You can breathe into that substance and mold 



THE SPIBIT WOKLD. 13 

it into any shape you please, and when yon shall have be- 
come sufficiently talented and skillful you will then create 
a beautiful image, a statue that will challenge the admira- 
tion of the world. So with the musicians, so with the 
singers. 

Musicians are there who delight the multitude, who 
pour out song from the inner heart and life, and draw 
down inspiration from the higher spheres or grander spirit 
planets, and pour it out to the world to lift up and inspire 
their fellow men; and the musicians with the grand un- 
folding and inspiration from the beyond pour out the 
music of the spheres, glorious beyond description, grander 
than human tongue can tell, and as it rolls forth in, sweet- 
est volume its reverberations come through the surround- 
ing spheres until it reaches earth and gives some har- 
mony, some blessing, some glory and beauty to human 
lives struggling here upon the mortal world. 

We have not time to tell you of all the environments 
and the various employments, for they are manifold. 
Every individual on earth who has a desire to create, to 
accomplish something in a particular line, or who has a 
taste for some special employment, if he was upon one of 
these spirit planets he would have the opportunity to de- 
velop that, at least of reaching out and giving expression 
to it, molding into external form and expression that par- 
ticular line of thought and of employment; thus the em- 
ployments or occupations there are manifold. 

There are employments on earth that have no counter- 
part in the spirit spheres. The man who has to dig the 
street with a shovel and throw the mud out will not have 
to do that in the spirit, for it will not be needed and there 
is no mud. We have beautiful streets and all in excellent 
condition, kept so by the human magnetism of har- 
monious souls. But in the earth sphere, made up of 
grossuess, sensuality, greed, filth, are those who have to 
dig their way out of the conditions which they have made 
for themselves, and they may have been in very high 
station in earth life, may have been considered great mag- 
nates, but grossness was going out from them, and every 
form of such emanations made the dirt around them in 
the spirit world, and they have to dig themselves out by 
high cfTort, and though there are beautiful beings that 
come to them from higher spheres to help them, yet they 
have to do the work themselves. Everybody will have to 



14 THE SPIRIT WORLD. 

do their own work, though there are helpers and teachers, 
all along the way. 

"We can always change our employments, so they do not 
become irksome. The artist does not need to be an artist 
always, but he can be an all-around worker. He need not 
worry and find himself debilitated by disease or anything 
that depresses, but there is harmony and fitness of things. 
Harmonious spirits are attracted to those spheres and they 
make harmony all around them, and so with each sphere. 

What there is in the outmost sphere I cannot tell you, 
except what is brought to us by the spirit entities who 
dwell there, just as I come to-day to tell you what is here. 
Whatever life is in these outward spheres, there are 
glorious achievements, grand and uplifting influences. 
By coming in contact with those who are endowed with 
clairvoyance we can learn of those spirit spheres. We are 
all endowed that way more or less, we are all unfolded to 
some extent, as all have psychic powers, all have spirit 
perception. You are spirits and you cannot be spirits 
without spirit perception; you may be partially blinded, 
you may not be unfolded, but you have it. So in our 
spiritual realms we are psychically endowed and unfolded 
to an extent so we can all gain something from these outer 
spheres, and we can gain a grand and strong inspirational 
force from the teachings given from these spheres 
through those who are mediums. 

Let me tell you old Spiritualists especially, we never 
have cause to distrust our mediums. We do not make 
conditions hard here. We give them the best we can, our 
love and sympathy; they have their sweet homes, beauti- 
ful environments, their temples of art in which they draw 
inspiration and in which they gather the forces and the 
visions from the higher outward worlds that they trans- 
mit to others, and thus we get a knowledge of other 
worlds for our edification, spiritual strength and unfold- 
ment. We know we can sometimes go to these outward 
worlds. We shall not be confined to the spirit planet or 
the few spheres that surround it. We shall not always be 
held down to these conditions that are about us now, be- 
cause we shall achieve, we shall grow, we shall learn, we 
shall work, not only for the purpose of going forward and 
outward but for the purpose of helping our fellow men bo- 
low us, making them stronger, giving them light and love 
and enabling them to realize that good is everywhere, is 



THE SPIRIT WORLD. 15 

within the human soul, even within those who are dwell- 
ing in the lower spheres in the conditions of this earth 
life, within the poorest, the humblest, the vilest of earth. 
Even in the lower spheres there is immortal good. When 
we have our friends realize this, as they will some day, 
there will be an outward growth and the first sphere shall 
all be dissipated, it will lose its power, the elements that 
compose it will scatter and be taken up by nature, by the 
physical planet or the great worlds of space, and made 
over into better, higher and more useful purposes, and 
those who dwell there will pass out, and when this planet 
earth becomes dissipated into space, as it may be in the 
aeons of the future years, those who dwell upon the spirit 
planet and in all these spheres surrounding it will have 
passed on to greater, grander planets, still more glorious 
in splendor, and to yet grander achievements nearer and 
still nearer to God! 



Psychic and Astral Development. 



Lecture Delivered Before the Theosophical Society of 
Chicago, by Countess Constance Wachtmeister. 



The Theosophical Society was formed in 1875 by 
Helene Petrovna Blavatsky and Henry Steele Olcott. 
This society places before the world three objects, the first 
being to form the nucleus of a universal brotherhood 
without distinction of race, caste, sex, creed or color. The 
second, to study comparative religion, philosophy and sci- 
ence. The third is to investigate the unexplained laws of 
nature and the powers that lie latent in man. We will 
take these three objects and look at them. 

The first is the only one which is binding. The other 
two objects are taken up by individual members according 
to their own pleasure. Since all time the great wisdom, 
divine wisdom, has been in the hands of highly evolved 
men, and they have held these teachings in their custody, 
and as the law of evolution has unfolded and the cen- 
turies have succeeded one another, when they have seen 
that fresh fragments of this divine wisdom could be im- 
parted to the world, they have sent some great teacher to 
give out these truths. The teacher has brought them 
forth, has died and passed on, and then the followers have 
crystallized the teachings into a religion. And so you 
will find all over the world a great number of religions. 
But in the 19th century it was decided to form a theo- 
sophical society, a society which persons might join from 
all these different creeds, where men and women might 
gather together in one vast brotherhood. So far we have 



PSYCHIC AND ASTRAL DEVELOPMENT. 17 

accomplished our work, because in every religion and. 
every nationality you will find our members. But this 
brotherhood is a very imperfect one, and necessarily so, 
because as long as the lower nature in man is still ram- 
pant, as long as there are these different discordant notes 
of vibration between men and women you will find dis- 
harmony, and it will only be as man overcomes the mate- 
rial, as man dominates his lower nature, that gradually he 
will turn toward the spiritual, and then a real communion 
of souls will be formed, a real communion of thought, 
knowledge and love. 

The second object is the study of comparative religion, 
philosophy and science. This is chiefly undertaken by 
the highly intellectual in our society, and I have known 
men who have gained the highest degrees in universities 
during the last ten to twenty years, have found this study 
exceedingly interesting. In fact they have pursued it 
with ardor, because they find in theosophy a cause of the 
different mysteries which enfold both religion and phil 
osophy. 

The third object of our society is chiefly interesting to 
those who have had a little glimpse of the unseen world. 
Those who have had such a glimpse know and understand 
that it is possible to develop these latent powers in man. 
Here in America you will find a vast number of persons 
who are interested, persons who have had a slight vision, 
perhaps in some particular moment of excitement, or a 
dream, or in different and various ways. Therefore one 
finds a keen interest in America in these occult subjects. 

There is a great dissimilarity between Americans and 
persons belonging to European nations. In America you 
will find that the women particularly have a very nervous 
organization. There is an enormous difference between 
the women here and in Europe. Let us take, say, the fac- 
tory girl in London; such a girl does her work just as she 
is ordered, a stolid sort of girl who does what she is told 
to do, but there is no intellectuality in her work. The 
moment it is finished she goes out to some resort pleasure 
and is perfectly happy. Now in America you will find 
quite a distinct class of girl, one who will do her work, 
perhaps the same work, intelligently, will put a kind of 
enthusiasm into it, and when it is finished she will go 
home, anxious to read and to know everything that goes 
on around her. 



18 PSYCHIC AND ASTEAL DEVELOPMENT. 

Suppose you take an English girl who is at the washtub 
during a whole hour. At the end of that time you find 
her arms red, her skin coarse almost as the skin of a goose. 
Then look at the difference here in America. You will 
find a woman or girl at the washtub the same time, and 
when her arms come out of the soapsuds they will be 
white, and of quite a different texture; the hands will be 
soft, and as you look you will be able even to trace the 
blue veins with the blood flowing under the epidermis. 

So you see the American woman is far more highly and 
nervously organized than the woman in Europe. In 
America only do we find this, and it is attributable to the 
amalgamation of the races that is taking place. Many 
different races have come over to America; and are inter- 
mingling and the children are growing up with these 
highly nervous organizations. 

I wonder if it has occurred to you why this is. It is 
because America will be the birthplace of the next race, 
and you are now gradually forming into a new race. You 
have all these occult faculties within you. just on the verge 
of being awakened, and when you reach to that sixth race 
you will find that you are able to awaken and use them. 
Even now there is a large number seeking and desiring 
this development. Many come to me as I travel over this 
country. This is the third time and I have had a very 
extended opportunity of meeting a vast number of per- 
sons, and it has been perfectly extraordinary to me, to 
find so many here who have these psychic gifts just on the 
verge of being developed. 

We all know that man has five physical senses. Man 
has also five psychic senses; but as the energy is always 
rushing outwards to objects through the physical senses, 
these five psychic senses remain latent within man and 
do not become developed. Sometimes when a person is 
very ill, when the vitality is exceedingly low, when the 
physical is almost in a dormant state, then suddenly these 
psychic senses come to the fore, and to the great astonish- 
ment of the person he begins both to see and hear. Grad- 
ually as health returns all these psychic faculties become 
latent and dormant once more. Whenever there is a 
great rush outwards into the world of physical objects, 
these psychic senses become repressed, but we all have 
them and can, if we so choose, train them in the right 
way and bring them into full activity. 



PSYCHIC AND ASTRAL DEVELOPMENT. 19 

Let me explain what these psychic senses are : Say that 
in your imagination you are able to create a peach before 
you. You ought to be able to see that peach perfectly; 
to taste that peach with your inner sense of taste; to feel 
its particular touch; and also to smell it. You should 
have the power to thus manipulate your psychic senses, 
the peach being simply your own imagination and 
thought. You know that every thought you think takes 
shape, and as long as you put energy into the thought it 
remains in that shape; therefore a person can so develop 
himself as to enable him with his thought to create that 
peach, to see it, smell it, taste it and touch it. 

So also you may create within your mind a basket of 
flowers. That basket is there on the astral plane and you 
can get your inner vision trained so you can see each 
flower and can fill the basket as you please. You should 
be able to smell these flowers; so vivid should they be to 
the astral senses that they would be quite as material to 
them as a basket of flowers would be to the physical 
senses. You should be able to touch the astral flowers 
and feel the full extent of their beauty, because they are 
far more exquisite and beautiful, as everything on the 
astral plane is far more exquisite and varied than here on 
the physical plane. 

Looking around, you find that persons have their phys- 
ical senses differently developed, and they can be trained. 
You will find one has short sight, another long sight. 
You will find one is very hard of hearing, another has very 
good hearing. A musician will be able to train his hear- 
ing to a most extraordinary point, because he will be able 
in an orchestra to trace at once a false note. 

In the same way an artist will be able to train his eye 
for colors. 

Now, if it is possible on the physical plane to train the 
eyesight and hearing to that extent, why not further? 
Why should it stop? Necessarily the power extends to 
the etheric plane. We know we are all surrounded with 
ether; we know that there is an electrical discharge of 
ether to the brain every time we think a thought. If we 
are surrounded by ether and permeated by ether, then 
necessarily we know there musl he an extension of the 

senses. All these senses arc inherent in the etheric; thai 
when once they have been unfolded in the etheric nat- 
urally they can be extended into the astral. I have been 



20 PSYCHIC AND ASTRAL DEVELOPMENT. 

told that the very farthest limit of physical hearing is to 
hear the squeak of the bat; only one who has an exceed- 
ingly fine sense of hearing can recognize it. Perhaps that 
sound may illustrate the last limit that you arrive at on 
the physical plane before you enter the etheric. 

Then again with color; you will find that in Cashmere 
the women have the power of discerning shades of color 
with more keenness than you do here. That is why Cash- 
mere shawls are so exceedingly beautiful, because they are 
able to blend all colors, thus giving a kind of softness 
which it is impossible to find in anything which is fab- 
ricated in the West. 

The development of these senses is of the nature of ex- 
tension. It is also a matter of responding to vibrations, 
because as you can respond to vibrations, so do your pow- 
ers awaken. Imagine yourself in a whole sea of air, all 
this sea of air intermingled with ether, ether interpene- 
trating the physical, ether interpenetrating the air, ether 
interpenetrating everywhere, and that you can respond to 
all that; then you get an unfoldment of these faculties 
within you; but you cannot respond to all these vibra- 
tions now, you are deaf, and blind to them. For instance, 
the electrician if he has a very high voltage of electricity 
can throw that through your body without your feeling it. 
I had a very interesting experience in Calcutta. It was 
an Indian who showed the experiment. He had elec- 
tricity at a very high voltage and he passed this current 
through animals and the animals felt absolutely nothing. 
So in the same way these very high vibrations of ether 
pass right through your body without your knowledge, 
because you are perfectly insensible to them; it is only as 
the potentialities within yourself gradually unfold that 
you are able to respond to high vibrations; then you can 
open out to them. 

Now imagine the whole world covered with a great 
cobweb of vibrations, an enormous cobweb, all these inter- 
secting and interpenetrating one with the other, from the 
enormously coarse to the very finest that you can conceive 
of; and then think of how few vibrations you are able to 
reach, and you will get some slight idea of what the de- 
velopment means; you have the potentialities within your- 
self of responding to everyone of these vibrations, but at 
present you are insensible to them. However, you are 



PSYCHIC AND ASTRAL DEVELOPMENT. 21 

gradually developing these powers, and as yon develop 
you will be able to respond. 

The discovery of the Roentgen rays has helped us very 
much in this. It has shown us that the opening out of 
two or three of these vibrations makes quite a new world 
to us, and you can understand something of the expan- 
sion of consciousness when further discoveries of vibra- 
tions are made. You will then understand how you will 
be able to penetrate inwards, more and more, and so com- 
prehend these finer forces of nature. 

There are persons in the world who have the power of 
looking into the human body in the same way that the 
body can be looked at through the Roentgen rays. There 
is a boy in Massachusetts that has this power. He is able 
to examine the body and locate bullets or diseases of dif- 
ferent kinds, and he is used by medical authorities there. 
In Europe I have met several. One in Geneva is author- 
ized by the government to do this work. I visited her 
twenty years ago, and she cured me of an ailment, simply 
looking through my body, discovering the difficulty and 
giving me the remedy. It was said she never failed, and 
the doctors would come long distances to consult with 
her. I have met another in England. She is also em- 
ployed by physicians to look through the body and thus 
locate where diseases are. Then again, this power enables 
you to read within a closed book; you can see into an ad- 
joining room and know what is transpiring there, and so 
you see how the vision is extended when one or two more 
of these vibrations are opened out to you. 

There are a great number of persons to-day who are 
trying to develop their psychic senses, and their psychic 
faculties. I will mention a few of these methods. 

First we will take Spiritualism, because in Spiritualism 
you will find persons able to open out clairvoyance, clair- 
audiance and various other faculties. To enable them to 
do this they have to be passive. It is a very easy, lazy sort 
of development, because they must remain perfectly in- 
active and negative. L^nknown entities on the astral 
plane open out their faculties of seeing and bearing, and 
gradually develop them. But after all what does i; 
amount to? Nol very much, because it is not reliable. 
You sometimes get through such a medium thai which is 
perfectly true, but sometimes yon gel what is quite un- 
true, therefore you never know whether what a medium 



22 PSYCHIC AND ASTRAL DEVELOPMENT. 

tells you is true or not until the statement is realized. So 
much has proved untrue that it makes it exceedingly 
puzzling to discriminate between the real and the unreal. 

Why is this? First of all you must understand the con- 
ditions of the astral plane, because when you open these 
faculties you enter into that plane. This physical world 
has its laws, and forces which govern it. If a chemist 
were to experiment in his laboratory without understand- 
ing the laws of chemistry he would be in great danger; 
and if you attempt to enter on the astral plane without 
understanding the laws that govern there your ignorance 
will lead you into much trouble. There is this difficulty: 
on this physical plane we have three dimensions of space; 
on the astral we have four dimensions. The laws of 
astral matter are different from the laws of physical mat- 
ter. How can you enter on the astral plane and get in- 
formation about it unless you understand the laws which 
govern it? Therefore this Spiritualistic method is very 
faulty and unsatisfactory, because it does not include the 
knowledge of the laws which govern the astral plane. 

We will take psychometry. It is a very interesting 
method. There is no harm or danger as there is when 
journeying on the astral, where you may meet unpleas- 
ant and dangerous entities. You would not care to asso- 
ciate with persons here on earth who were full of evil 
thought and desire, yet the moment you open the door of 
mediumship these undesirable acquaintances from the as- 
tral world come in. In psychometry you simply develop 
your inner faculties so as to enable you to psychometrize 
an object. You take an article in the hand or place it on 
the forehead, and you will see its whole history, and will 
be able to reach into the soul of it. The wife of Mr. Den- 
ton, an American, had a wonderful faculty of psychom- 
etry. He has written some very interesting books, one 
called "The Soul of Things," showing how his wife was 
able to penetrate into the history of an object, and many 
of her researches were intensely interesting. A fishbone 
was given to her folded in a paper. She related the whole 
history of the fish, where it was found, described the con- 
ditions under the sea and gave many details. If you gave 
her the description of some lost article she would imme- 
diately tell where it was to be found. Her faculty was a 
very valuable one, but it was power on the physical 
ethcric and not on the astral plane, 



PSYCHIC AXD AST JUL DEVELOPMENT. £3 

The next point I will come to is the method of develop- 
ing through the magnet. That was Reichenbach's 
method, fieichenbach was the man who discovered what 
is called odyllic force in our theosophical literature; it is 
what we term aura. He maintained, as we do, that not 
only each human being is surrounded by this od, but 
every animal, every vegetable, every mineral. In fact, 
everything in nature has this odyllic force around it. 
According to Eeichenbach, the way to see this aura is to 
take a magnet suspended by a silken thread, then to look 
at the magnet and after a time you will begin to see a kind 
of dim, very dim, sort of light that will appear at the two 
points or the two poles, and also around the magent. He 
taught many people this method, but he was very careful 
to say you should never look with both eyes at once, be- 
cause the focus of the eyes is very rarely exactly the same. 
One person sees with one eye a short distance, with the 
other a long distance; strangely enough that would pre- 
vent seeing the aura; but if you closed one eye and looked 
with the other, after awhile you would begin to see a light, 
looking exactly like the quivering light over a furnace 
when there is a great fire in it. When you have the right 
focus you will gradually begin to perceive something of 
the etheric and astral aura. But there are other and finer 
auras which cannot be seen by Reichenbach's method. 

The next point that I will take up is crystal-gazing. It 
is a curious way of developing clairvoyance. You look 
into the crystal, and by gazing into it for a certain time 
you paralyze the capillary nerves of the brain; when they 
get into that paralyzed condition the inner sense of sight 
begins to open, and you see all kinds of pictures in the 
crystal. But what is the good of it? They are very 
pretty to look at, but you do not know what they mean, 
l herefore there is not much of value in this method of de- 
velopment. Some try to develop through looking at very 
bright objects, as a diamond; but that is exceedingly 
harmful to the eyesight, and I have known several who 
have nearly become Mind from using that method; so 
whenever 1 find those who wish to develop through crys- 
tal-gazing, I have advised them to lake ink. place it in a 
saucer, then look at the BlUOOth Surface. Exactly the same 
results follow, only wit limit harm to the eyesight. 

The next method that I will take up is a very curious 
faculty that Mr. Stead has spoken of in his Borderland. 



U PSYCHIC AND ASTRAL DEVELOPMENT. 

He tells us that he had the power of forcing people to 
write through his hand whatever he wished them to ac- 
quaint him with, and afterwards he would take the 
writing to the person, who would tell him he had not the 
least idea of having written it, but that the circumstance 
related was entirely true. Mr. Stead has done this fre- 
quently in London with a great number of people, and 
has had to acknowledge he could only do it with those 
who had very weak wills, persons whose thought was not 
steady, who had their thoughts always in a fluctuating 
state. Anyone with a steady will, a concentrated will, he 
could not touch or approach. 

There was a man in Italy who had the same power and 
continually drew secrets in this fashion. I do not approve 
of doing this, because I think we have absolutely no right 
to search into the secret minds of others, any more than 
we have the right to go into their rooms, take a false key 
and unlock their drawers and examine their private pos- 
sessions. The act is an unlawful one. 

We will next look at the power of frenzy. It is very 
peculiar. The dervishes, for instance, will whirl round 
and round continually until they fall into a kind of trance 
state, and thus they get the use of some psychic power, 
and are able to prophesy. When the physical is in a cer- 
tain way deadened the psychic comes to the fore. 

Then there is ceremonial magic. That is quite a pecu- 
liar way of developing the psychic faculties. If you pro- 
nounce certain sounds or use magical rites you open a 
door to certain elemental forces on the astral plane, and 
they appear before you. If you are a person of exceedingly 
strong will power you can gain dominion over these ele- 
mentals. But it is a very dangerous thing to do, because 
the day may come that you will tell them to do what is 
wrong and they will then turn and rend you. I have 
known some very disastrous cases where people have at- 
tempted to develop this faculty and who later have re- 
gretted it exceedingly. But this is not an easy method. 
First of all you have to train an enormous will power. 
Then when these elementals approach you you have to 
gain perfect and entire control over them. 

Some people try to develop themselves through the 
imagination. A few are trying to get on the astral plane 
in that way. Now imagination is a very important factor 
in our lives, but its misuse is dangerous. If you go on 



PSYCHIC AND ASTRAL DEVELOPMENT. 25 

imagining things and allowing your imagination to ran 
riot, the chances are you will go insane, therefore it is a 
thing you have to be exceedingly careful about. You can 
make a mental image of a thing and see it in your mind's 
eye, as you call it, and then you run off to something else, 
and you see that in the mind's eye; so you will go on until 
you become perfectly oblivious to your physical con- 
dition; you are on a plane of imagination which you have 
created for yourself. 

I will tell you a curious story which happened to a 
group who determined to develop themselves through 
imagination. They had gone on for several months until 
the whole group were able to imagine things very readily 
and easily. When one would make a mental image every 
one would see it and feel it, and so they thought they were 
progressing splendidly. One of the group had to take a 
sea voyage. The others determined they would try and 
greet the friend when at sea. The individual departed for 
the steamer. A tremendous storm arose a few hours later, 
and this group being assembled began to think what an 
awful storm it was, what a fearful storm, how terrible it 
was this friend should be at sea. Then their imagination 
ran loose. They saw the steamer, they saw how the waves 
were tremendously strong; they could hear the wind howl- 
ing; the vessel swayed from side to side, and then they 
looked down into the boat and at last they found their 
friend in a berth most frightfully sick, as ill as he could 
possibly be. Then the sympathy of these persons for the 
friend was so great that they all began to get ill, and they 
had to break up the group. The next morning came a 
telegram from the person saying, "I know you will be de- 
lighted to hear that I never went on the boat, because the 
storm was raging so fearfully, and I feel sure that you will 
congratulate me; and now I will wait until the sea is 
calm." I may tell you that the group broke up and they 
never tried to develop their imagination in that manner 
any more. 

Now we will take up breathing. That is a method of 
development which a greai Dumber of persons in this 
country are trying. Some hooks treat of methods whicli 
are not suited to the Western people. The Eastern body 
has been for long centuries trained for this kind of de- 
velopment, and SO thrOUgl) physical heredity they have 

suitable bodies. Yon will find thai East Indians can prac- 



26 PSYCHIC AND ASTBAL DEVELOPMENT. 

tice this breathing in a way that no Western person can 
do. An East Indian would never for one moment attempt 
this practice unless he had a master who had already gone 
through the path and could lead him and help him. But 
in the West you take to this breathing — at least many of 
you do — without any master whatever, and the conse- 
quence is you get in trouble. As I travel around your 
country I meet a great number of persons who have been 
very seriously injured with breathing, and the conse- 
quence is they have lung troubles and troubles of every 
possible kind and description; so I look at this process of 
breathing as being a very foolish one. 

They have Hatha Yogis in India. The Hatha Yogi 
develops the psychic faculties through torture. A man 
will hold up his arm until it grows in that position. 
Imagine what pain and torture must be endured before 
that arm becomes fixed in that position. When I was in 
India I visited the great Mela or religious Fair in Alla- 
habad, and saw what these Yogis can do. I passed into 
their quarters. About 200 of them have beds of spikes. 
These men lie naked on these beds of sharp spikes, laugh- 
ing, talking, absolutely feeling no pain. They had over- 
come all sensation in the physical body. When they reach 
that point they have developed enormous will power; all 
the psychic faculties blossom out. Again, I saw a scaffold, 
and supposed that men were going to be hanged, and 
asked what their fault had been. The answer was that 
several Yogis were there that morning hanging with their 
heels upwards and their heads downwards and there they 
remained for four hours looking at the sun. The heat 
radiating from the Indian sun can hardly be realized here 
in the West. Imagine what control over the physical 
body, what enormous will power these men possessed. It 
is something which in America you cannot even conceive 
of. I saw a group of men. There was in the midst of 
them one who had a rope and he was pulling this rope up 
through his nostrils and bringing it out through his 
mouth, a rope as big as my finger. I asked for an ex- 
planation. The answer was he was cleaning the inner 
canals. When they were properly cleaned he would burst 
out into prophecy and be able to answer any questions the 
people asked him, that being a method of developing 
these psychic faculties. 

Now I have told you of all these different processes, and 



PSYCHIC AND ASTRAL DEVELOPMENT. 27 

you can judge for yourselves whether the results obtained 
are of sufficient value to pursue them. The object of de- 
veloping the psychic faculties is to have knowledge of the 
astral plane, and to manipulate the laws of the astral 
plane; and not one of these various methods leads to that 
result. The difference between the theosophical society 
which instructs you in the knowledge of the laws, and the 
various other kinds of development which only deal with 
phenomena, is very apparent. 

I lived for six years with Helene Petrovna Blavatsky. 
That remarkable woman had powers which she had de- 
veloped when in Thibet, and when she formed her society 
she gave instructions to pupils. They, after working- 
five, ten, fifteen or twenty years, began to develop all 
these faculties. H. P. Blavatsky always said this: "Never 
take anything that I tell you as true, but rather accept 
what I give you as a hypothesis and work on the lines that 
I will demonstrate. If you will do that day by day, month 
after month, and year after year, you will then be able to 
verify what I tell you as true." Her pupils followed her 
rules implicitly and to-day they have the power of going 
on the astral plane at will, and also the power of manipu- 
lating the forces there, because they have been properly 
taught. This is a satisfactory way of having psychic pow- 
ers, because not only can you see all that occurs on the 
astral plane, but you can also be of benefit to the humani- 
ty which is to be found there. 

Mr. C. W. Leadbeater, of London, is one who has this 
extraordinary faculty, and he has written a book called 
the Invisible Helpers, where he shows how persons can 
help others both on the physical and psychic planes when 
they are able to make use of these psychic faculties. He 
also tells you that when persons want to develop these 
powers they should have first of all six qualifications, and 
these six qualifications are absolutely necessary for you to 
obtain before you can gain the knowledge which you are 
striving for. 

First of these is single-mindedness, then self-control, 
then calmness, then unselfishness, then knowledge, then 
love. J will explain them and endeavor to show you why 
it is necessary to have them before you try to develop your 
psychic faculties: 

You must have >iugle-mindedncss. To safely awaken 
these faculties you must have no double purpose in doing 



28 PSYCHIC AND ASTRAL DEVELOPMENT. 

it. You must not want them in order to pander to the 
curiosity of others, or from a desire to have a great noto- 
riety; you must not develop these faculties because you 
want to make a living out of them, but you must be 
single-minded and unfold them because you want to help 
others; because you want to be of use to humanity. 

Then you must have self-control, for you could not 
work on the astral plane with full consciousness if you 
gave way to temper. A very slight temper would produce 
most terrible havoc on that plane, setting up very destruc- 
tive vibrations there, therefore you must have perfect self- 
control. Remeber that on the astral plane there are all 
kinds of entities; as varied and voluminous as on the ani- 
mal plane here on the physical earth; also you will find 
beings other than human there, a vast legion of them, and 
if you come in contact with some of these entities before 
you have attained self-control they may frighten you most 
terribly. 

I have read a very interesting book called Christian's 
Magic. Christian wrote of the various kinds of trials a 
neophyte in Egypt had to pass through before he was per- 
mitted to develop the psychic faculties. Development 
alone, he said, is impossible; you will only get into trouble 
if you attempt it. Each neophyte had a master. The 
master will show the pupil a great furnace with red-hot 
iron over it, and he will order him to walk over that iron. 
Now if the pupil has fear and does not immediately do the 
master's bidding he fails under that trial. The master 
says he has not sufficient courage to qualify him to go on 
the astral plane. Then again, you have to pass through 
water, great rapids. If you have the slightest fear, again 
the master will say, you have failed. Another is that you 
have to pass through a den of wild beasts. If you show 
the slightest fear you have not passed the test. Again, 
beautiful women surround the neophyte, singing their 
siren songs and wreathing their garlands of flowers 
around him. He has to remain calm like a marble statue. 
If he succumbs his weakness is proved. Those are the 
kinds of trials that in olden days the neophytes had to 
pass through before they were considered worthy to enter 
with knowledge on the astral plane. 

The next qualification is calmness. That is absolutely 
necessary, because one of the chief works on the astral 
plane is to help the souls of the dead. When people die 



PSYCHIC AND ASTRAL DEVELOPMENT. 29 

they always find those on the other plane ready to receive 
them. This work would be impossible for yon if your 
mind is not in a state of equilibrium. You must have per- 
fect calmness and then when these troubled souls arrive 
you can render the service they need. Many a soul be- 
lieves when he comes over on the astral plane that there is 
a hell and is in mortal dread, terrible dread, because he 
finds no trace of a hell. He knows he is not in heaven, 
but he expects the pit will open every moment and that 
he will fall into it; therefore you can realize that many 
souls are troubled when they come over because of the 
false teaching they have received here on earth; perfect 
calmness and gentle vibrations are necessar ,T in you if you 
are to help them. 

The next qualification you must have is knowledge. 
You must study to obtain a knowledge of the conditions 
of the astral plane. Work there is far more effective if 
you have studied the teachings of those who know. It is 
far easier to one who understands what he will find than 
to one who arrives there in ignorance. 

The next qualification is unselfishness. You will make 
no progress if you enter that plane with the slightest de- 
gree of self-aggrandizement in your heart. Your desire 
must be to help and give yourself to others. 

The last qualification is love. That intense love which 
will make you forget yourself, which will make you want 
to help others, that intense love which will make you long 
to make yourself an instrument so that God's divine 
power may come through you; that love which will make 
you ready to sacrifice yourself in every way that you may 
help those around you; that perfect devotion which will 
enable you to go up the steps of the path of holiness. 
Blessed are those who really enter into the path now, be- 
cause they will develop, and as they progress will be able 
to help on their weaker brethren. But those who are 
lazy, who turn aside, who laugh and ridicule — and there 
are many of them — they will have to go on being born and 
reborn until at last the law of evolution will sweep them 
with resistless force into the great stream together with all 
other laggards. They will have to suffer much, because 
they have been laggards. 

I have given you some slight idea of what qualifications 
are necessary when you enter tin 1 path. When you have 
obtained these you are ready to become a candidate for 



30 PSYCHIC AND ASTRAL DEVELOPMENT. 

entrance into the school. Then you can be trained. You 
will have one more advanced than yourself who will teach 
you here on the physical plane. You will find a teacher 
when you are ready to enter on the astral plane; as your 
faculties unfold a teacher will instruct you on the heaven- 
ly plane, and so you will find teachers on all the steps up 
the ladder that you may unfold your latent powers on all 
planes and thus become one of the helpers of humanity. 

The astral plane is a very wonderful one. There are 
not only all the human beings or deceased persons who 
have passed on, but there are also innumerable entities 
which belong to that plane. There are all the nature 
spirits. There are all the devas who are less evolved than 
human beings, and a whole kingdom of devas who are 
far more highly evolved than man. There are all the 
devas of the earth, the air, fire, water, and all the classes 
that are under them; when you reach that plane you will 
come into quite a different kingdom than what you have 
known here on earth. How foolish then to imagine that 
you can enter that plane without having a teacher who 
has passed through it and knows the perils, one who 
understands the dangers and who can help you, one who 
can guide you. And when you are fortunate enough to 
have obtained such a teacher all the vibrations that I have 
told you of open out, and as they open all these wonderful 
things become known to you. 

Now certain other things are requisite. You have to 
develop aspiration, concentration, and meditation, and 
3'ou have to gain control over your thoughts, because 
without such control you can never govern yourself. 

Madame Blavatsky has told us of a method of concen- 
tration which she called mental gymnastics. There is 
nothing occult about it, but it is helpful. Keep a little 
pebble in your pocket and when you have a moment take 
it in your hand and fix your mind upon it. Your mind 
will run off; bring it back to your pebble; you will find it 
running away again like wild horses prancing on all sides; 
each time bring it back to the pebble. Persevere in this 
about two minutes at a time, then five minutes perhaps, 
and then a quarter of an hour, until at last you are able to 
concentrate your mind on the pebble at will. That is 
what is called making the mind one-pointed. Until you 
can fix your mind on the one point you can never gain 
concentration. 



PSYCHIC AXD ASTBAL DEVELOPMENT. 31 

x\nother thing which she taught will be of help to you 
when you are frightened with things in the unseen 
world. You can protect yourselves against them. You 
can with your mind build up around you what is called a 
shell. You can manipulate the ether with your thought 
and build around you a shell which no evil thought can 
penetrate. You cannot see this shell with the physical 
eye, but it exists in reality, so that no psychic influence, 
no astral influence can ever penetrate into that shell if 
your will power is sufficiently strong to enable you to 
build that wall. And when you have created it, Mme. 
Blavatsky said, "Be sure that you fasten it up at the ends 
so you do not leave a hole where something can creep in." 

Should one of those deceased entities come to you who 
is unpleasant and disagreeable, make the five pointed star 
in your mind before you and throw it against the entity 
and then he cannot approach you. This can also be ap- 
plied to the astrals of living persons who try to obsess you. 
A great number of the children born to-day are sensitives 
and I rejoice to be able to give you these little preventives 
so that you can teach your children how to protect them- 
selves. 

Let me finish with these words: If you really want to 
develop these astral faculties, do not go the wrong way 
about it. Gradually learn the laws of the astral plane. 
When you are a pupil of a true master you will be pro- 
tected so there will be no danger to you. Build the six 
qualifications which I have placed before you into your 
character. As time goes on you will find that persons will 
become more and more psychic in your country. As the 
Americans gradually become this sixth sub-race you will 
find that the psychic faculties will blossom out more and 
more, and you should know how you can develop them in 
the right direction. You have the potentialities within 
you to enable you to respond to every vibration, and as 
they unfold your inner vision will become wider and 
wider, and your mental faculties also will expand, and you 
will find that all vibrations proceed from the One, and you 
will try and become in harmony with that One. And 
when your vibrations are in harmony wild that One, you 
will reach the "Divine vibration/' We have the poten- 
tiality of this within us. Boundless as Deity is, every 
man has all the possibilities of the Divine within him. 



Twentieth Century Fulfillments. 



A Discourse Given Through the Mediumship of 

Cora L. V. Richmond, Before the Church of 

the Soul, Chicago, Illinois. 



The 20th century fulfillments forms the theme around 
which our remarks will cluster this morning. 

"Whether there shall be prophecies/' it is said, "they 
shall fail;" yet ultimately all prophecies come true. 

Cyclic fulfillments are just as certain as the recurrence 
of the seasons and the revolutions of the planets, and their 
conjunctions, and the reappearance of comets. It only 
remains for one to have knowledge of the great spiritual 
forces of the universe to understand that spiritual life 
contains all these prophecies and their fulfillments. A 
fact which you think is to be upon the earth, really is; 
and therefore it only needs the spirit vision, penetration 
and prescience to understand that which is to come to the 
earth already somewhere abides. 

The 20th century has not only been the subject of great 
hopes, but is a century around which many prophecies 
have clustered; and it is really to be a century of great 
fulfillments. These prophecies that have come in the 
guise of scientific predictions of various things that are to 
set the world in greater commotion; of that which is to 
supersede the noisy steam engine, and even the fairy and 
swift- winged electric appliances; these like many other 
things are in their turn to entirely pass out of use in tin' 
world and be superseded by still greater inventions. From 
day to day you have indications of this. Of course it will 



A FORECAST OF THE FUTURE. 33 

not be very distant that the navigation of the air will be 
a fixed possibility in the earth's atmosphere. Already its 
success is assured as a fact, it only remains to be appro- 
priated as a means of transportation. There is much more 
prospect of it now than there was in the first years of the 
steam railroad, that that would become the universal 
means of land transportation; or that electricity, when the 
telegraph was introduced in a hall in a little country town 
and it was actually found that a person could telegraph 
from one end of the room to the other, would reach such 
proportions that ultimately the earth would be too small 
for it to attain to its greatest possibilities. Now you are 
expecting wireless telegraphy; but this is only the pre- 
cursor to that added telegraphy that will unite the earth 
with other planets. This has already been talked of. But 
electricity may not be the means of communication, nor 
even electrical "vibrations." There is a system of more 
subtle vibration between worlds, and when you discover 
and avail yourselves of that, as you have of the vibrations 
of electricity within the earth's atmosphere, you will have 
found the means of communicating with other planets. 

Besides you have knowledge of communication with the 
minds of others; telepathy is no longer doubted, conse- 
quently there will be intercommunication between minds 
and minds upon the different planets as there now is com- 
munication between minds and minds upon the earth. 

The solar engine is in the imminent future and is to 
supersede steam and electricity as well. Those rays of 
light that now seem to be squandered, or are held in solu- 
tion somewhere, will be made available. Science has gone 
far to prove what John Ericson dreamed of many years 
ago: This solar light and heat will be conserved and used 
in the winter time, so you will have solar light and heat 
for your dwellings; and you will be able to temper the rays 
of the sun in the summer time, by having large reservoirs 
or receptacles to take the surplus light and heat from your 
streets and dwellings and thus make a suitable tempera- 
ture during the entire year. The solar heat will be made 
available for the new motor power. The electric light, 
which you now consider so resplendent, will be superseded 
by this great solar light, which in many respects resemhlc- 
the electrical vibrations. 

All this will come in the early part of the 20th century. 
As the means of transportation increases in rapidity, com- 



34 A FORECAST OF THE FUTURE. 

munication with nations will increase in facility, and this 
will be one of the means for the obliteration of war. For, 
as we have many times said, with air-ships throwing 
bombs into fortifications there will be little possibility of 
resisting the encroachments of an approaching enemy. 
Human intellect is using all of its force and power to con- 
centrate and utilize the destructive substances of nature. 
So it will come to be a fact, that war will be such a danger- 
ous experiment that nations will hesitate to resort to it. 
This, perhaps, more than any sense of brotherly love, will 
prevent nations from warring. Then, naturally, will fol- 
low courts of arbitration, and international congresses of 
arbitration, and at last the world will cease to see these 
formidable preparations for war. 

In Psychical directions in the past century, especially 
the latter half of the past century, such manifestations 
have occurred as to induce many people to believe that, 
externally (in the phenomenal sense), you are to have 
greater manifestations of psychic power than in the past. 
We venture to differ with these. We think the increase 
in psychic power will be with individuals; that perception 
of psychical principles will be to the unfoldment of the 
race. The race is to come into the heritage of those 
spiritual forces that have been denied you through super- 
stition on the one hand and materialism on the other. 
Material religion and material science have both combined 
to deprive the human race of the legitimate exercise of 
spiritual power. Where known they have been appro- 
priated by those who were supposed to be spiritually en- 
dowed as spiritual teachers and guides, who have been en- 
rolled under some denominational sect. Religion has 
closed the door to individual spiritual experiences and 
made the race dependent for spiritual teaching upon ex- 
ternal forms and theological training. All this has been 
interfered with, and much of it has been set aside in the 
last fifty years by the advent of Modern Spiritualism. 

Of course, just as soon as human lives become aware 
that religion is a spiritual expression, and that each one is 
entitled to exercise any of the spiritual gifts that are in 
the universe; as soon as people become aware that proph- 
ets and seers and those endowed with spiritual gifts were 
human beings; that these gifts, according to the growth 
and needs of the human race will become more and more 
the possession of humanity, that, in other words, all that 



A FORECAST OF THE FUTURE. 35 

realm that has been clouded by ignorance, superstition 
and bigotry is being opened as a portion of the legitimate 
possession of the human race; the psychic growth of the 
world will be wonderful; instead of little children being 
punished and treated by physicians because they have 
.psychic power, it will be encouraged and strengthened, 
and people will gradually learn that the possession of 
psychic gifts is not a weakness but a strength, and that 
they only require recognition and the surrounding of the 
sensitive with as careful conditions as those with which 
you surround your chronometer or your compass to make 
you aware that they are among the rarest and best posses- 
sions of the human race. 

Finally, as the world has entered upon a new psychic 
era, that psychic era is to culminate in a great degree in 
the 20th century. "We mean to say, that a larger number 
of people upon the earth's surface will enter into the 
knowledge of spiritual things and possess psychic power; 
will understand psychic subjects; will know that these are 
a legitimate source of inquiry, and that the human mind 
may intuitively be open to receive influences, impressions 
and teachings from those who have passed from human 
life; that this will be no longer sacrilegious, nor sinful, 
nor forbidden, but it will be one of the great strides in 
human recognition. It is even so to-day. You cannot 
take up a magazine, scarcely a daily paper, without find- 
ing one or more articles impinging upon or actually treat- 
ing of these subjects. All this open recognition of the 
spirit realm, instead of being a hindrance to humanity is 
a great help, a luminous background to human endeavor. 

Edison and every great inventor admits freely that the 
inventions do not emanate from his own mind; that he is 
aware of receiving help; that behind him is some one who 
gives the impressions; that these impressions usually 
come, either in visions of the nighc or when the active du- 
ties of daily life are hushed and shut out; that all unex- 
pectedly the point which he had been struggling for is at 
once revealed to the mind. Every great discoverer, like 
I hi -schell, in the discovery of the planet that formerly 
bore his name, freely admits that there is some a priori 
knowledge or vision from the realm invisible. This 
knowledge is forced upon the outward consciousness. All 
the realm of discovery, so-called, must be in the realm of 
That which you invent or discover to-day, somewhere is 



36 A FORECAST OF THE FUTURE. 

actual knowledge — of those who are higher and wiser, 
an actual and practical reality. Whatever planet is be- 
yond yours in unf oldment must have already in operation 
those forces and motors which you are striving for; and, 
no doubt, visitants from those worlds, either from the 
spirit realms surrounding them, or actual inhabitants, do 
approach the earth and give these impressions to those 
ready to receive them. 

You cannot limit the powers of mind, you cannot re- 
strain the intelligence that will speak, even across the 
spaces. Neither can human beings, unaided, claim _ to 
gather these truths from the great reservoir of unthinking 
invention. There never was a thought in the universe 
that was not thought by some intelligence. Neither was 
there an invention that was not perceived by some intelli- 
gence. The primal source of every invention must be the 
Great Creative Intelligence; as intelligence is the only 
power that can discover, so intelligence is the only power 
that can impart discoveries. The steam engine did not go 
prancing around in the universe for some inventor to find 
it. It was the result of this great thought motor that is 
so much greater than the force of steam that in its pres- 
ence steam becomes but a toy, a bauble merely. There 
are no great thoughts floating around for you to think 
them, but thought responds to thought by intelligence, 
personal and individual. 

Those souls that are alive and are freighted with knowl- 
edge do not think their knowledge far away from earth 
and dole it out in parcels. Just as fast as human lives are 
ready they are ready to impart it. The teacher does not 
withhold knowledge from the little child through any 
selfishness or miserly instinct of keeping the knowledge to 
himself, but according to the growth and ability of the 
child imparts % the lesson that is needed. So as human 
lives grow these lessons are waiting in the minds and 
thoughts of the higher intelligences for human beings to 
possess them. 

The forces of nature, so-called, do not communicate 
themselves directly to intelligence without an intervening 
intelligence. These forces themselves you think un- 
intelligent, but behind each pulsing orb, behind each 
manifestation of nature the great power of deific intelli- 
gence is manifest, and there man must find the secret 
source of his knowledge. 



A FOEECAST OF THE FUTURE. 37 

This 20th century is expected to wipe out war; that is, 
largely to bring about the reign of peace; that is to see 
international arbitration; that is to witness the inter- 
change of human commodities without commercial greed, 
with nothing of the spirit of barter will not bring the 
millennium; human brotherhood on earth is to come to its 
fulfillment by better spiritual understanding. 

Religion, when crystallized in any form, in any given 
theology, has not been able to bring this about in any gen- 
eral way, although it is quite certain that the early 
disciples lived together in a sort of fraternity. It is quite 
certain that the Quakers and the Shakers and many 
isolated religious bodies have at first illustrated that fra- 
ternal spirit; but it is usually at the sacrifice of some mate- 
rial or other law. The usual form has been too great 
asceticism, something that is not grounded in the usual 
needs and requirements of the human race. The monastic 
life of many religious bodies; the seclusion of the adepts 
in the East; the separation from their kind of many orders 
of Brotherhoods have made possible these ascetic and ex- 
alted lives, nevertheless they do not illustrate the general 
progress of the race. The Christ that ate and talked with 
publicans and sinners; the Christ that visited all classes of 
people, from the palace to the cottage; the Christ that 
found humanity where it was, this is the Spirit of that 
Truth that was to reach and renovate the world. 

Of course there must be prophets and teachers, those 
who point the way and declare the truth, but the growth 
must be by the molding of the individual lives that make 
up the communities, the societies and nations. When 
these nations have outgrown war there can be no war; 
when they have outgrown certain kinds of selfishness in 
the lines of commercial dealing there can be no such 
methods as prevail to-day. These methods are not ,to 
blame. People talk about certain conditions in life as if 
the methods themselves were responsible. Creeds have 
been blamed by the materialists and the agnostics for the 
ignorance of the human race. You might as well blame 
the shell in which the young bird is incubating, and say, 
"the bird could fly if it were not for the shell." Of course 
when the bird is ready to fly the shell will break. So there 
never was a creed strong enough to hold a person who had 
outgrown it. When you see multitudes flocking to the 
Romish eh inch and to other churches, you may know il is 



38 A FOEECAST OF- THE FUTURE. 

their place of incubation; you may know that it is just the 
place adapted to their needs. That all attempts that seem 
to outsiders to keep people from thinking are really their 
shelter. It is very difficult for people to think when they 
are not able to think, they do not know how. The meth- 
ods of knowing how to think and of growing toward it are 
not prevented by creed and dogma or a prison cell. Per- 
haps you could not write as Pascal did if you were in 
prison. Neither can you out of prison write as he did. 
The restraining walls would not cause you not to write, 
but you have not grown to those heights, you have not 
conquered in those spiritual ways. Those "mute in- 
glorious Miltons" that we have read about so many times, 
those "flowers that are born to blush unseen and waste 
their sweetness on the desert air," are largely in the poet's 
imagination. If there is a Milton, even though blind, he 
will have visions of paradise; and if there are blossoms 
they bloom, not for eyes to see, but because to bloom is 
the loveliest and sweetest thing they can do. All this talk 
about genius being hidden away in some dark corner of 
the earth is a mistake. The New England rocks could not 
hold the genius of Webster, could not fetter the songs of 
Longfellow, nor could the rules and severe asceticism of 
Quakerism prevent Whittier from singing the songs of the 
people. Nowhere upon the earth is there a rocky cave in 
mountain or valley that can hide the eagle when it is 
ready to come forth. So when the people are ready this 
great inheritance is to be theirs. 

There are present indications, which science is well 
aware of, that the earth is making ready for one of those 
great cyclic changes, to which we have referred. You are 
aware that not only in the conjunction of the planets and 
other great astronomical facts there are mutual influences 
that planets exert over one another, but there is that in 
astronomy called the "precession of the equinoxes." You 
understand that the poles of the earth are gradually, grad- 
ually, gradually changing; that there must come a time 
when there will be a reaction, and with this change there 
must come that which is known as one of the great glacial 
periods, where continents are destroyed, where the whole 
earth undergoes a geographical change, where, perhaps, 
only the Noahs, the precursors of the future generations 
will be preserved. Of course, there must always be left 
the seed of the human race, and of the animal kingdom, 



A FORECAST OF THE FUTURE. 39 

the germs of the plants, that which is to bring forth the 
future results. ]f people were not so anxious to find 
faults in the Old Testament instead of finding the inner, 
esoteric meaning, they would know that the great 
Xoachian deluge is but one of the traditions or records of 
a certain period of time, of a cycle in which there was a 
glacial deluge. We compute the time to be about 25,000 
years between each of these great cyclic changes. We con- 
sider that the time since the last glacial deluge time is 
nearly passed, but it will not probably come to the cata- 
clysm in the 20th century. The precursors, however, are 
already here: In certain lines of prophecy, in the appear- 
ance of many religious zealots who see the "end of the 
world"' every few minutes and try to make ready for it: 
and among scientific people, as well as among those who 
have studied these great cycles and their spiritual mean- 
ing: and we claim to be among those who have announced 
this great cyclic change. The precursors are already here: 
in the greater agitation and variation atmospherically; in 
the greater disturbances by land and sea; in the effect 
upon human lives, causing many mistakes to be made: 
more accidents upon railways, and street cars, and acci- 
dents upon the oceans, in the great physical epidemics, 
and moral epidemics. These great crimes are precursors 
of this change. These are days of culminations. There 
are just as great geniuses in crime as there are in inven- 
tions, and people also discover new ways of torturing their 
criminals; new ways of putting the criminals out of the 
way instead of teaching them how to do better. Electro- 
cution is one of these discoveries that enable people to 
demonstrate (as they suppose in the interest of the law) 
the best method to torture each other, whether a matter 
of, so-called, or mis-called, justice, or whether as a matter 
of revenge, which finds culmination in such a period 
as this. 

Human lives will also seek to find many palliations for 
existing wrongs. But palliations are not cures. Social 
reforms are usually moral anesthetics. The science of 
materia medica has discovered a great many anesthetics, 
and it is the present form of practice in materia medica to 
soothe the pain more frequently than to cure disease. It 
is left for the Christian Scientist, the Spiritual and Mag- 
netic healer and that sort of people to cure the patients. 
Doctors are proficient in surgery and anesthetics, and that 



40 A FORECAST OF THE FUTURE. 

means that the causes of human ailments have not been 
removed, but palliatives are used. 

Of course attention to the sanitary conditions of the 
crowded, cities makes a good beginning. It is quite a dis- 
covery in the right direction when men and women of 
eminence are seeking to-day the knowledge of how you 
house your people, not your wretched poor, but your 
laboring people, your mechanics, your day laborers. To 
find in many instances in the densely populated portion 
of your city that there are more than one thousand people 
crowded into one block. Not where the buildings are the 
highest, but where they are so close together that at best 
they offer small chance for sanitary conditions. These 
houses are a much better solution than those discovered 
by the science of medicine, of that which has caused 
scarlet fever and typhoid fever to crop out in such places. 

Scarlet fever and typhoid fever are sounds of alarm, 
they call upon you to cleanse the streets and clear out the 
places of filth. We propose to make it a part of our busi- 
ness to teach the necessity of letting in the light, the daily 
light, the sunlight, materially as well as spiritually, to 
clear out the "slums" and "levees," in fact the entire city 
of Chicago, and make it clean. It will be a glorious cen- 
tury if this can be done. London and New York have but 
partially solved the problem. It was a part of the genius 
of Napoleon the great to make Paris a beautiful city. He 
did it at the expense of the whole country, but he suc- 
ceeded. If your city can be beautiful without injustice 
try to make it so. 

With added facilities of transportation you would be 
surprised if cities, in the sense they now exist, shall have 
no existence in another century. People will not then 
stay in cities unless they are obliged to, and nobody will 
be obliged to from lack of being able to see fields and have 
fresh air, cottages and homes, not houses and tenements. 

What will it be then? It will be a race of people grow- 
ing up in the midst of the beautiful scenes of nature, ap- 
preciating the blue sky, the starry vault, the sunrises and 
the sunsets, the flower gardens, the fields and meadows. 
The whole country has room for homes for all the people. 
How beautiful it would be. Then the cities would only 
be occupied by shipping interests, railroads and commerce 
as distributing centers. We see that rapid means of trans- 



A FORECAST OF THE FUTURE. 41 

portation and changes in the methods of hnman life may 
bring this about. 

Of course people swarm together for the experiences 
they get. It is only after the experience that they want 
to be isolated. The recluse of refined taste is the man or 
woman who has met the world and has been polished. 
They are great lapidaries, these cities of to-day, they rub 
off the refuse of ages. People rush together because they 
think they are lonesome, only to find there is no greater 
lonesomeness or barren desert than the crowded city. But 
people become humanized in that way. There are few 
that can appreciate the lonely grandeur of the Rocky 
Mountains, or the Alps. The vast prairies do not appeal 
to people until they have been ground out in the mill of 
humanity. 

Consequently the next aim will be to civilize the cities, 
to make them tolerable places of abode, instead of in- 
tolerable. To make it possible for this aggregation of 
human beings to dwell together in a little better sort of 
way. Yet these people that are hived in so closely to- 
gether are marvelously kind to one another. You turn 
a man away from your residence whom perhaps they 
would feed. There is fraternity and sympathy among 
them. Sometimes this is a great lesson to you. And, 
possibly, you will ascertain when you cast your ballot for 
the one that is to see to it that there are better means of 
housing these people, that it is not simply that they wish 
to be there, but because the grinding poverty, and the 
treadmill of daily toil does not offer any better place for 
them to live in. 

You have a limited income, you live where you must. 
If your income were less you would hav« to live where 
they do. 

Now the great problem is to have the income and the 
home combined for a place of comfort, fresh air and sun- 
shine. 

Spiritually there is a great deal of light being *et in 
upon the earth. The upper lights have been turned on 
for more than half a century; the hadean darkness has 
been dispersed, the great gaunt vaults of fear, and the 
horrible thoughts concerning death have been scattered. 
Yet there is still much to do. 

Your cemeteries are places of disease; your crowded 
cities grow and include them. When the vaults of your 



42 A FORECAST OF THE FtTTUBE. 

spirits are opened you will understand that your friend is 
no more in the ground than enclosed by the garments 
they have worn when on earth, and you will have changed 
the whole aspect of that which relates to, so-called, 
funerals. 

The 20th century will note, not only a marked change 
in this respect, but you will perhaps be surprised when 
you see that not only flowers for the wealthy, but for all 
classes will come, blossoms of hope and joy, with the tran- 
sition of the spirit from the body, and there will be no 
more this terrible form of grief and mourning. 

Spiritual illumination has done much; spiritual com- 
munication has done much; the opening of the avenues of 
thought between the two worlds has done much; but more 
and more will be accomplished in the gradual growth of 
the people away from the thought of death. Life is con- 
tinuous, changing, yet everlasting, and the transition of 
human beings from the earth to the future state will be 
accounted as a great occasion of rejoicing. It was our 
privilege to officiate just a few days ago after the tran- 
sition of a young girl from human life, when she went 
singing songs of praise, and calling her loved ones about 
her, she told them not to mourn, that she would still be 
with them. Her vision was opened, she beheld those who 
came to her, and un to the last moment was talking cheer- 
ingly to those who were in human life. 

There is to be a great reformation in Death. More 
people will have visions; more people will understand that 
it is but another step in life; mourning shadows will grow 
less and less and the darkened pall will give place to re- 
joicing. The opening of the vision to the immortal wond 
of those who are passing away is not new in the world, but 
it will be more anc 1 more recognized. This taking of tne 
next step will neither be dreaded before it comes, nor 
mourned as annihilation after it comes. Such will be the 
illumination that will spread abroad almost imperceptibly 
over the world, as it has spread in the last fifty years. The 
hanging of flowers on the doors, the draping of the casket 
and room with blossoms, has done much to express this 
thought. 

But really, dear friends, the best thing you could do for 
people is to give some blossoms while they stay with you, 
instead of spending a vast amount to make yourselves be- 
lieve that death is beautiful. Let their lives be adorned 



A FOEECAST OF THE FUTURE. 43 

with flowers; let the good things you say about them be 
said while they are here. Tell them how much you love 
them every day instead of keeping it stored away until 
their forms are silent; it will help them as well as you. It 
is a great deal better to do this while they are in human 
life than when the change comes. Then there is no lack 
of blossoms when they enter spirit life. The spirit of life 
is this blossoming. 

Ah! it is the tombs and sepulchers that you find in daily 
life that makes you so full of grief when the loved are 
gone. But they do not go, they do not pass from you, 
they are in your midst, and whatever blossoms you bind 
their lives with, of hope and love and joy, these they pos- 
sess when the time of transition comes. 

Yes, Satan has been reformed in the last half century. 
Now the old-time enemy of the world, Death, is to be re- 
formed, and Death as a reformer will take the right place 
in your thoughts and in your lives. 

Flowers pass and fade, corn-fields stand stark and bare, 
you have the harvest stored away carefully in the grana- 
ries, at least the farmers should have. But you do not 
house your treasures of love, nor harvest your fruits of 
kindness, therefore, when the change comes you feel the 
loss. But in the great storehouse of the spirit, in that 
which makes the fruitage and final triumph of life, you 
only cast aside the stalk, the leaves, the outward covering, 
the husks, the grain is yours. 

This great treasure-house of the spirit lies all about you, 
environs and girds you round about with its ministering 
presences and powers, and all the great and wise and true 
who have passed on are helpers. Those who were not en- 
lightened, who were unfortunate, who have not con- 
quered, are in their own shadows. But the great burdens 
of the world you are continually aided and strengthened 
to bear. 

The 20th century marks the death-knell of Death in the 
old-time theological sense. Churchyards and all their be- 
longings will give place to knowledge of the realm of the 
spirit, of the light that is beyond, of the strength and 
beauty and greatness that abide there. 

The 20th century is the precursor for the great cata- 
clysm, for the glacial deluge, and all the forces of mind 
and spirit mark the epoch faster than matter does. 
Therefore, there are culminations inwardly which will 



44 A FOEECAST OF THE FUTUEE. 

bring about a culmination in ways for devising peace; cul- 
minations in religion that will bring about a great deal of 
sectarian struggle to the new enlightenment of the race; 
culminations in commercial relations that will bring 
about a general readjustment, since nations will be so 
girdled around that they will be checkmated by other 
nations through the interchange of commerce. There 
will be great changes in the relation of capital and labor, 
since now they are divided. But a man will stand for 
more than a dollar, and humanity will stand for more 
than money. The time is coming when these forces will 
be allied of necessity, and necessity will bring about 
equalization and growth. 

Fraternity cannot be compelled, but fraternity will 
gradually take the place of selfish aggregation. As soon 
as people understand that each is included as a part of the 
whole. You fight the world now, the "I" being against 
all the rest. It was a great proposition in science when 
the sun was made the center of the solar system, instead 
of the earth. It left the earth because science found it 
was too small to be the center of so much magnificence. 
When the center found its own place the universe seemed 
to be better adjusted. Now the "I" is supposed to be the 
center of the universe in every human mind. Just as soon 
as that is changed and the "I" is relegated to its own 
place, as a part of the whole — the soul preserving its 
identity — the universe will run smoother with you. The 
whole human family will not be against you, you will be 
one with it. 

There is a vast reciprocity of souls, a mighty com- 
munity of eternal intelligences, of which you, as a soul, 
are a part, no smaller, no greater than any other soul. 
Your interests are no more important and no less import- 
ant than others. And you, as one of that immense num- 
ber of souls, move in response to Infinite law. Nations, 
communities, personal interests, all are governed by this 
great purpose. 

When you understand it; when you know this, all this 
rebellion and warfare and striving against the Infinite 
purpose and against the small petty personal experiences 
will vanish. If you walk the thorn-path, others have 
walked and are walking it. If you have a hard task to 
perform, others have hard tasks. If you have great grief, 
others have grief also. There is no isolation in sorrow or 



A FORECAST OF THE FUTURE. 45 

in joy. A common pulsation runs throughout the uni- 
verse and through the races for the mighty purpose of 
human experience. 

This 20th century, releasing many things that have 
been chained in the past, will yield greater beginnings 
than you suppose; will teach each human life that he or 
she is no better, no worse in the great economy of souls 
than demons or archangels; each is only a state of growth 
and expression. 

When James Phillip Bailey made Lucifer at last to be 
restored as an angel of light, it was a great spiritual lesson. 
When Sir Edwin Arnold makes the Magdalen the princi- 
pal expounder of the teachings of the Master, it is a great 
spiritual lesson. Xo one is higher or lower, ultimately, 
primarily; and the various conditions of human life are 
but that you may find expression in some century like the 
20th century and see how you long have moved with one 
mighty purpose toward that event, that in itself is no 
greater than thousands of events that have preceded it, 
or will follow it: that all culminating periods have nations 
of people like yours. 

At some time in the garden of earth the lily blossoms; 
but for that lily there is the darkness that hides the germ, 
the bursting forth of the shoot, the transmutation and 
transfiguration toward the flower, then finally the open- 
ing of the blossom, the one supreme event of that lily's 
life. Yet to those who gaze on fields of lilies miles and 
miles in extent that one lily means little or nothing, yet it 
is the one event. 

Somewhere in the Garden of Life the great immortal 
Lily of Love has its hiding place in the darkness, in the 
midst of rocks and thorns and briars, possibly hidden 
away, and no one suspects that it is there. There is strug- 
gle and there is growth; the stalk comes forth, then the 
leaves, and finally, for that life the supreme moment ar- 
rives, the white Lily of Love has awakened, has blos- 
somed. Yd to those who watch thousands and millions 
of completions of souls this is hut an event, usual and 
common, hut it is tin- Bupreme moment for that life; not 
an angel would turn away, nor an eye be filled with scorn 
in all the heavenly company to see the blossom of im- 
mortal love in any and every human life. 

So. beloved friend-, this century will shape itself to 
great fulfillments; hut there were other ages and will he 



46 A FORECAST OF THE FUTURE. 

more of equal importance. And as you are standing upon 
the threshold now beholding the mighty mysteries of the 
past, remember it may be that this immortal Lily of Fra- 
ternal Love will blossom upon the Earth, and human life 
will reveal it in the gardens of earth, and that angels will 
bend and at last behold it. 



Dreams and Their Significance. 



A Lecture Delivered in the City of Chicago, 111., by 
C. W. Leadbeater, of London, England. 



The subject of dreams is one which I think ought to be 
of very general interest, because all of us sometimes 
dream, and it must have occurred to us that we should be 
glad to have some explanation of these dreams; how some- 
times they are quite confused, improbable and absurd, and 
at other times they seem to have a certain feeling about 
them, a kind of stamp of truth, and we feel that they are 
very different from the ordinary type of dream. And 
then I suppose that quite a number of us must have had 
the experience of dreams coming true; that is to say, 
dreams which prove to be previsions of something that is 
about to occur, or else which indicate to us something 
which had already occurred or was then occurring at a 
distance. 

Now, all these different varieties of dreams demand 
some sort of explanation. There is a good deal of diffi- 
culty in arriving at a satisfactory explanation along the 
ordinary lines that are laid down by students of psychol- 
ogy; but we have in our Theosophical system an explana- 
tion of all these, which seems to us to be more perfect and 
more satisfactory than any which we get outside of our 
system, and I propose to-night to try to indicate to you as 
far as can be done in so very short a period what that ex- 
planation is. 



DREAMS AND THEIE SIGNIFICANCE. 47 

Those of you who have done me the honor to listen to 
other lectures which I have delivered will already be 
aware that our Theosophical teaching takes for granted 
the existence of various planes in nature — that is to say, of 
other types or orders of matter very much finer than what 
we ordinarily call matter of this physical plane; that we 
hold all this to be in essence the same matter, but in a 
state of very much greater subdivision, vibrating at a 
very much more rapid rate, and consequently in various 
ways not exactly obeying what down here are the laws of 
nature with regard to matte?, but still perfectly real, ex- 
isting just as truly as does matter down here, and equally 
perceptible, although not to the ordinary senses. 

We hold also that man has within himself matter of all 
these different planes or types, and that by means of the 
matter corresponding to any particular level in nature 
(the matter within himself, I mean, which corresponds to 
that level), he is able to sense this level and receive im- 
pressions from it if he has developed the necessary facul- 
ties; because we hold that just as on this plane which you 
all know man may receive, and does constantly receive im- 
pressions from outside through the channels of his senses, 
so he can and does receive impressions from these various 
other planes of more refined and subdivided matter by 
means of the matter within him which corresponds to 
these respectively. 

We, therefore, credit man with something very much 
more than merely the soul and body of popular theology. 
We say that he has belonging to him not one body or ve- 
hicle, but several, and that all of these are channels 
through which communications may reach his soul, and 
all of them also are instruments which that soul can use 
when it learns how to use them, and through which it can 
express itself just as it does through the physical body. 

Before you can understand how these impressions are 
given, it will be well for us just to glance at the vehicles 
through which these things come to us — to see what is the 
mechanism by which we receive impressions from outside. 

Now beginning at the bottom, there is, first of all, this 
physical body with which we all consider ourselves to be 
familiar. How are impressions received through the 
physical body? Any physiologist will tell you thai the 
whole scheme of receiving impressions, of whatever kind, 
from outside, is managed by the nervous system of man; 



48 DKEAMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 

that we have all over our body a network of exceedingly 
fine nerves, and that these convey messages to the brain; 
that if you put out your hand and touch something and 
feel that something to be hot, a message is telegraphed 
from the nerves at the end of your fingers up to the brain, 
and in consequence of the heat you withdraw the hand 
hastily. That is done because the brain has in turn tele- 
graphed back another message: "If it is hot, then with- 
draw from it." All that process takes place in the in- 
stant of time which elapses between your touching some- 
thing too hot to hold comfortably and dropping it in- 
stantaneously; science will tell you that that is so; indeed 
two separate processes have taken place, and the time oc- 
cupied by them is quite measurable by the fine instru- 
ments used in scientific investigation, although it would 
seem hardly measurable to us without those instruments. 

This nervous system is liable to be affected very much 
by external conditions. The whole of it centers itself in 
the great nerve axis which runs up the spine and. which 
leads into the medulla oblongata at the back of the neck 
and up into the brain, and all these nerve impressions are 
received and registered by the brain. 

That brain is very liable to be considerably affected by 
all sorts of comparatively small disturbances in the body. 
People often think of the brain as being always absolutely 
reliable, as far as it goes and up to its own level of com- 
prehension. It is no such thing; it may be very largely 
affected in its power to respond to impressions by quite a 
number of what we should probably think very small in- 
fluences. For example, it is absolutely dependent upon 
the condition of the body for its true working, for its ex- 
act registration of any impressions which are received. 
The blood which circulates through the brain affects it 
very seriously and that in three separate ways — by its 
quantity, its quality and its speed. 

In regard to the quantity: If there is too much blood 
in the brain, then at once we have congestion, and from 
that comes irregularity of action, which quite often may 
extend to hallucinations of various sorts. If, instead of 
having too much blood we have too little, we obtain a to- 
tally different effect. First of all, we should have irrita- 
bility produced, and then very shortly lethargy would su- 
pervene; so that the mere question of the quantity of 
blood which is supplied to the brain makes a very serious 



DREAMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 49 

difference in its power of responding to impressions and 
registering them. 

Xow in regard to the quality of the blood. Suppose 
that it is not sufficiently oxygenated — that there is not 
sufficient oxygen in the air we breathe, then it becomes 
super-charged with carbon dioxide; at once our power of 
responding to impressions is seriously affected. We can 
see that 'for ourselves when we have been for a little while 
in a crowded room like this; then we often find ourselves 
becoming sleepy. Why? Simply because there is not 
enough oxygen in the air we breathe, and consequently 
the lungs are unable to give the proper amount to the 
blood; the blood cannot supply the brain with the oxygen 
that is wanted; in consequence the brain fails to respond 
readily to impressions and falls into this semi-conscious 
condition. 

As to the speed with which the blood flows — if it be a 
little too great we have fever; if it be a little too slow, then 
again we have lethargy; so that very slight deviations 
from normal health or the normal condition of affairs may 
entirely alter the power of our brain to respond. I want 
to make that matter clear, because then you will see how 
exceedingly easy it is for the various curious thoughts that 
come in our dreams to occur. I shall show you how 
later on. 

That is just one side of the thing, the physical vehicle 
through which we receive our impressions; and you see 
that there we need practically perfect health— -we" need a 
perfectly normal and regular flow of the blood in order 
that we may be sure our impressions are correctly re- 
ceived and registered, and that what we think we perceive 
through our senses we are really perceiving. 

There is another part of man's physical brain which is 
not usually taken into account at all, and that what we 
in Theosophy call the etheric part of the brain. It is still 
physical matter, but it is physical matter in a much higher 
state of subdivision than even gaseous matter. It bears 
the same relation to gas which gas does to liquid, or liquid 
to solid; it is a higher state of matter, vibrating differ- 
ently, a much finer subdivision, freer in motion, and in 
many ways differing greatly, but still it is purely physical 
matter, and does not belong to the astral plane. Man has 
within his brain a large amount of matter of this nature, 
and although it belongs to this plane it differs in different 



50 DREAMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 

ways from the ordinary physical matter of the brain, so 
that we very frequently speak of it as the etheric brain of 
the man. 

Now this etheric brain of man corresponds very closely 
with the denser physical, and it also must be in perfect 
condition in order that communications from the Ego to 
the lower brain may come through properly and without 
distortion, or in order that any message from outside in 
the nature of a sensation or impression may in turn be 
clearly carried upwards to the Ego. 

Now this etheric part of the brain, and in fact the whole 
of man's etheric body, as we call it (that is of the etheric 
matter in his body) is also the field of a circulation — no 
longer a circulation of the blood, but a circulation of a 
vital magnetic fluid which we call prana in our Theosoph- 
ical books. That is simply an Indian name for life, for 
this is the life fluid that is circulating — running not along 
the arteries and veins but following the course of the 
nerves, running through the nervous system of man; and 
we find by experiment that unless that flow of the life 
principle (which of course is entirely invisible physically 
and not received or accepted as yet by ordinary science) is 
duly taking place sensations are not properly registered. 

I can give you examples to show you that this is so. 
For example, if your hand is numbed with cold, you have 
no sensation in it; it may be pricked and you do not feel 
it. Something may touch you; you do not feel the touch; 
your nerves are not registering as usual. Now it may be 
said that is due to the fact that circulation of the blood in 
that hand has been checked by the intense cold. Perhaps 
that is not the whole reason, but never mind, we may let 
that pass. The hand appears to be for the time a dead 
hand, dead from cold. 

Take another case which will show you a little more. 
Suppose you have that same hand or arm operated upon 
by a mesmerizer. If you have ever seen a mesmeric ex- 
hibition of any sort you are aware that it is an easy pro- 
cess for a mesmerist to make a few passes over the hand 
or arm of a man and utterly take away all sense of feeling 
from it, so that you may run a pin or needle into it and 
the man does not feel; he will be quite unconscious until 
he happens to see what you are doing. That is not a case 
where the circulation of the blood has been checked; that 
hand is warm and living as before. What has happened 



DKEAMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 51 

to the nerves? Why do they not register as before? I 
do not know how ordinary science explains that; probably 
it does not explain it; but from the occult standpoint we 
should tell you that a clairvoyant looking at that hand or 
arm would be able to tell you precisely what had hap- 
pened. He would say that the mesmerizer had simply 
drawn away the man's life fluid and poured his own mag- 
netism in instead. Though the arm is still warm and liv- 
ing, because the life fluid is still flowing along the nerves, 
it is no longer in connection with the brain of the man; it 
is not his life fluid, and consequently although the physi- 
cal nerves are there, yet they fail to report to the brain; 
they are kept alive by the flow of a foreign life current, 
but it does not convey sensations to the brain of the man. 
Here are these nerves obviously failing in their office; be- 
cause this life current was not there, they failed to report 
the prick or pinch or touch, not doing their work; so that 
evidently a regular flow of that life current also is neces- 
sary in order that sensations may be properly registered 
by the brain. 

Now we come to a stage further than that. Let us 
leave the physical man altogether and think of his astral 
vehicle. That passes at once quite outside of the domain 
of science, of course, but nevertheless in Theosophical in- 
vestigation we have established entirely to our own sat- 
isfaction that there does exist this astral vehicle of man. 
To tell us that it does not exist would simply provoke a 
smile, because it is a thing we are using every day, and to 
say we cannot use it is like telling a man that he has never 
fallen asleep, and that if he thinks he has he is laboring 
under a delusion. There are many of us who are con- 
stantly using all these faculties, and it is to us absolutely 
absurd to hear so many people say these things are all 
impossible. 

This astral body is also a very great channel for sensa- 
tion to the Ego; in fact, it is really the vehicle of all sen- 
sation. It is the seat of emotion, passion, etc., and from 
it and through it all sorts of impressions may be conveyed 
to the Ego within; all kinds of thoughts may excite desire 
or emotion or passion in that vehicle, and all of those feel- 
ings will be duly conveyed to the Ego inside; so there is 
another channel through which the soul may be reached 
by outside impressions. 

There are further and higher vehicles to be considered, 



52 DKEAMS AND THEIK SIGNIFICANCE. 

but I need not trouble you with those now, because we 
simply want to see in what condition is the consciousness 
of the man during sleep and in what condition are these 
vehicles, so that we may see in what way the man's con- 
dition when asleep differs from his state when awake, and 
how the impressions coming to him will come differently 
and be received and registered differently when he is what 
we call asleep. We must not forget, however, the con- 
sciousness, the real Ego of the man behind all these ve- 
hicles of which I have spoken, because those are all simply 
his instruments. We must remember that the Ego, the 
soul of the man differs very much in different people; that 
the souls of men are by no means all alike; that some are 
very highly evolved, very advanced souls, that have had 
very many births, and very much experience in conse- 
quence, and have progressed and have learned very much. 
Others are young and undeveloped souls, and conse- 
quently are very much less able to make anything of the 
various impressions which come to them from outside. 
That is a fact that we should bear in mind in our investi- 
gations. Then we must remember that this ego or self 
within is trying to gain control of all these vehicles of his, 
these different bodies, but that in very many cases he has 
by no means complete control over them. Very many of 
them are still quite liable to be carried away by a sudden 
rush of emotion or desire. A wild desire comes upon us 
to do something which we know we ought not to do, 
something utterly silly or definitely wrong and harmful, 
but still we do it on the impulse of the moment. We say, 
"I could not help that." It is the astral vehicle which 
originates this desire and not the man at all; the man has 
not yet gained perfect control over the thing. He is 
swept away. It is not the man who does all that. It is 
his weakness which allows the lower vehicle to sweep him 
away and govern him for the time instead of his holding 
it in order and governing it. It is exactly like the case of 
a runaway horse which ought to be guided and used, 
which for the time is allowed to take the reins and follow 
its own bent and run away. It is the function of the ego 
to make up what is presented to him as impressions from 
without, to combine them and sort them and rearrange 
them. I have not time to give you instances of that now, 
because I am anxious to go further into the dream side of 
the question; but you may easily see it for yourselves if 



DREAMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 53 

you think of what is really the impression conveyed to 
your eyes when you see a landscape; here is your retina 
which places it upside down; then you get nothing but 
the flat picture of a house or a tree, nothing but a flat pic- 
ture in outline, no feeling of the perspective or anything 
of that sort. Think that out for yourselves, and you will 
see how very much your brain does in the matter and how 
little comparatively your eye does; how your brain by vir- 
tue of its experience adds to and fills out that picture for 
you. You will find further particulars of that in the 
book on Dreams which I wrote, if you like to read it. 
You must remember the self has to combine and sort and 
rearrange and amplify these impressions that you receive, 
and it may do it wrongly; it may translate its impressions 
in the wrong way. 

There is a celebrated Hindoo example of that in which 
they speak of the man who in the dark comes upon a rope 
and takes it for a snake. In such a case the man becomes 
terrified just as though the thing were real, the ego per- 
ceives something that is translated from what he sees; all 
he is told in this case is that down there in the dark in 
front of him is something long and waving, and at once 
he thinks of a snake. There is no snake there, of course; 
so we see that he may misinterpret the impressions that 
come to him. 

Then again, we must remember that this ego, this self, 
can be impressed when he is away from the physical body. 
He leaves it during sleep or trance, and even when he is 
away from it he is still very impressible. 

"We have made experiments which tend very clearly to 
prove this. I remember one, for example, in the case of a 
man who had been given to drink. He had been a terri- 
ble drunkard, in point of fact, but he reformed utterly. 
He had progressed so far with his reformation that the 
smell of any kind of alcohol was exceedingly distasteful 
to him; but he said that for years after he had got rid of 
the desire, he was still liable to dream that he was drink- 
ing, and then in his dreams he drank with pleasure, al- 
though when awake he shrank with horror from the idea 
of the thing. 

That shows that the ego is liable to receive impressions 
during sleep and the impressions are received through 
this totally different vehicle, the desire persisting up there 



54 DEEAMS AND THEIK SIGNIFICANCE. 

long after down here it had been entirely wiped out of the 
man. 

We made other experiments which tended to show that. 
This that I am telling you about dreams, is based on a se- 
ries of experiments lasting some years, conducted upon 
this subject by one of the Lodges of the Theosophical So- 
ciety over in London in England. There we devoted our- 
selves to investigation in ways I shall be able to describe 
to you later on. This group of students had among them 
several who were clairvoyant — who had the sight of 
higher planes, and not in the vague and somewhat ineffi- 
cient way in which so many possess it, but definitely and 
orderly in their methods, to be used at will, and applied 
always in very careful tests in the most scientific manner. 
In this way they investigated this question of dreams, the 
clairvoyant members standing by to see what was taking 
place, while others observed the effect on the physical 
plane, etc. 

Now let me go on to try to explain to you what is the 
condition of this ego and these vehicles of his during 
sleep, and in what way they differ from the conditions 
when awake. First of all, take the physical brain. Dur- 
ing sleep the whole of the circulation of which I spoke to 
you is still going on; the ego is still subject to these cur- 
rents of blood which are passing through, and anything 
whatever which affects that circulation, even such a 
trifling matter as indigestion may easily affect the capacity 
of the brain to receive and transmit these various impres- 
sions and vibrations from outside, so that if there is any- 
thing the least wrong with him, then these things will be- 
come jumbled and senseless. 

It is a very curious fact that while the ego is quite away 
from the physical body, whe*D the man is what we call en- 
tirely asleep, that action is still taking place; that is to 
say, that while the man himself is away and may be think- 
ing out his own line of thought entirely outside of that 
brain, the brain itself is still — I can hardly say thinking, 
but still slowly evolving images. This physical body of 
ours has a kind of curious consciousness of its own, a very 
peculiar consciousness, about which there is still much to 
be learned, because to learn about it would explain many 
things which as yet are very vague and uncertain to us. 

This lower animal kind of consciousness which sub- 
sists in us when the man is withdrawn for the moment 



DREAMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 55 

from it, seems to be quite unable to register anything at 
all but the most concrete tilings. It translates all ideas 
with reference to itself; it can see nothing as apart from 
itself. All stimuli of whatever sort it translates immedi- 
ately into perceptual images; it cannot receive abstract 
thoughts or memories but at once it translates them into 
imaginary percepts of its own. 

Suppose when you are away from it, it thinks about 
you, as being in your own house, and then some thought 
connected with China comes into it. The only way in 
which that physical brain can take up that thought is by 
imagining itself transported to China, so that at once that 
local direction of thought takes the form of this spatial 
transportation. In the same way every association of 
ideas, no matter how far apart they may be in reality, no 
matter how curious the association may be, at once be- 
comes a combination of images. So if one thing sug- 
gests another by some association connected perhaps with 
some thought you had during the day, however grotesque 
the two would look side by side, at once they appear side 
by side; or one of them changes into another. That is 
the kind of effect you get. Whatever can be dragged 
from the immense stores of memory at once appears as a 
picture. This curious animal consciousness magnifies 
and it distorts the smallest sounds or touches in the most 
extraordinary manner. 

If you have ever read anything at all of the literature on 
this subject of dreams, any of the collections of stories of 
such things, you are sure to have met with some cases in 
which a very tiny touch given externally was magnified 
enormously, and always some sort of picture is invented 
to account for it. Cartesius tells a story of a man who re- 
ceived a slight scratch from a pin or something in bed 
while asleep. At once he magnified that into a fatal 
wound and concocted a story, with himself, of course, for 
the hero, in which lie had received this wound in a duel 
or something of that kind. Very many such stories as 
that you will find. 

Most of these impressions that come to the physical 
brain in the way I have described are not at all recover- 
able in your memory in the morning, heeause they are 
merely senseless successions, as a rule; so mostly you do 
not recollect these things that have been sweeping about 
in your brain in the night. 



56 DREAMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 

There is the other part, the etheric part of that brain. 
There we found in the course of experimentation a very 
interesting feature. This etheric part of man's brain is 
also, while the man himself is away from it, liable to re- 
ceive impressions from any thoughts that are floating 
about. Please remember that thoughts are definite 
things; that every thought creates a form — a form which 
is temporary, of course, which lasts only according to the 
strength of the thought which called it into existence, 
which nevertheless is perfectly definite, floating about, 
capable of impressing itself on any other brain with which 
it comes in contact. That is the whole secret of thought 
transference; you can direct these intentionally, if you 
will; but anyhow, the thought of any person near you is 
always liable to act upon your mind for a moment if you 
are not thinking strongly of anything yourself, so as to 
keep other thoughts out. These are not in the least your 
own thoughts, but simply the cast-off fragments of other 
people's which your brain picks up casually because you 
have no strong currents of thought of your own at the 
time. At night then this etheric brain is ready for any 
kind of impressions from the thoughts which come pour- 
ing into it from all sides. 

The experiment was tried of isolating this etheric brain 
by putting a magnetized shell around it so that the 
thoughts from without could not come in, and then we 
thought that this etheric brain would rest. It did not; it 
began very slowly to evolve for itself memories out of the 
past life of the individual. 

These are two of the vehicles (the physical body and the 
etheric brain), which are very much more open to impres- 
sions during sleep than they are when the man is awake. 
When the man is awake his own thoughts and feelings af- 
fect these brains. When he is asleep both of these are 
really inoperative, ready to receive any impressions that 
may be given to them from outside. 

As to the man himself, he is floating outside of his 
physical body in his astral vehicle. I say floating, be- 
cause the quite undeveloped man as a rule never leaves the 
neighborhood of the physical body at all, but simply floats 
about it, and if you had any clairvoyant sight and looked 
at either a savage or a man of very low type, you could see 
the physical body asleep on the bed and the real man in 
his astral body (a duplicate, in fact, of the physical, but of 



DREAMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 57 

course of finer matter), probably very little more awake 
than his physical body. 

But suppose you have a more developed man (one of 
yourselves perhaps), a perfectly ordinary person of cul- 
tured type of this advanced race, then you would find 
that sort of man when away from his body at night much 
more awake and conscious and capable of moving to very 
much greater distances from his physical body. He 
would be largely wrapped up in his own thought, proba- 
bly' not very conscious of the places around him and of 
those through which he moved, or only spasmodically 
conscious of them, because of his own thought images 
which would blind him to anything outside, but still he 
has his faculties about him, though they are directed to 
his own thought, and only occasionally are roused up suf- 
ficiently to take note of where he is, what he is doing, or 
whom he meets. He may not necessarily be very wide 
awake to what is going on around him, but still he may 
receive impressions of a broad and general character very 
readily indeed. If he drifts into an atmosphere of low 
sensuality assuredly that would act upon any similar 
quality or germ of such corresponding quality in himself 
and he would be stirred by feelings of that nature. Sup- 
pose he drifts into very devotional surroundings during 
his sleep, he would certainly receive an impression of 
strong devotion from these surroundings, even though he 
might not be able to see what was taking place clearly 
enough to remember it afterwards. 

Then, again, for him there is a different kind of con- 
sciousness, for he seems to think very largely in symbols 
and not in words. He has the most marvelous faculty 
under this condition of making up a story, of composing 
quite a long and elaborate history to account for any sen- 
sation that happens, and he can do this in an infinitesimal 
fraction of time. 

There are a good many stories afloat to illustrate this. 
I remember Richers tells a story, a very remarkable one, 
of a man who was awakened by the firing of a pistol shot 
in the street outside. Now it was the sudden pistol shot 
which awoke him and yet he woke from a dream into 
which that came as an integral part, and of which obvi- 
ously that sudden shot was the cause. As far as I remem- 
ber it, the man had gone through various experiences. 
He dreamed he had enlisted as a Boldier: that be had mel 



58 DREAMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 

with very severe treatment and eventually had deserted; 
that he had gone through all kinds of adventures, had 
been pursued and captured, brought to trial, sentenced to 
death and led out to execution, and the shot was the firing 
of the volley which wound up that long story; and yet it 
seems absolutely certain that he composed the whole of 
that story in the second that intervened between the 
sound of the shot and his full awakening. The ego evi- 
dently catches the thought a moment before the physical 
vehicle and makes up all this story to account for it. 

That is not the only instance where that is the case. 
You will find a series of stories in Carl Duprel's "Philos- 
ophy of Mysticism/' a large number of stories of this kind 
collected from various sources, which show how in a mo- 
ment the ego makes up his story, and a very wonderful 
and exceedingly clear story it frequently is. 

I remember the German writer Steffens gives us a cu- 
rious account of a thing that happened to him when he 
was a boy; how he slept with his brother and he had a 
frightful dream of being pursued along the street by some 
dreadful wild animal. It was gaining still upon him — as 
they always do in dreams — and at last he turned up a 
staircase and tried to escape, but the creature followed 
him and bit him severely on the thigh. He awoke feeling 
the bite of the creature upon him, and found his brother 
who was sleeping with him had simply pinched his thigh 
to wake him. That was all there was to account for that 
dream, and these are only two out of a great number of 
instances. 

It is a very wonderful faculty that the ego possesses of 
distorting anything tha.t occurs or of combining things 
altogether in a moment of time, of transcending our ordi- 
nary theories of time and space. A very fine story is 
given in Addison's Spectator which illustrates that very 
well. I do not know whether that particular story is 
true, but if not true it is very well invented. It is exactly 
the kind of thing that does happen. 

It is stated that there was a certain sultan of Egypt who 
had a great religious teacher. This teacher used to ex- 
pound to him the Koran, the Mohammedan bible. One 
day they came across a passage in which it was stated that 
Mohammed was carried into heaven by a certain angel; 
that there he was shown all kinds of wonderful things, 
the narration of which occupied a number of pages of the 



DREAMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 59 

Koran; yet that when he was brought back into the body 
by the angel; the bed from which he had risen was still 
warm, and a jug of water which had been upset when he 
departed had not had time to empty itself. The sultan of 
Egypt took leave to doubt that statement. He said: 
"This thing is not possible; it could not be done in that 
time/' which seems reasonable. The teacher said "I un- 
dertake to convince you, not that that story is true, but 
that it might be true/ 7 and he asked him to order a bowl 
of water to be brought, and then he said to the sultan, 
"Please dip your head into that bowl of water, and take 
it out again." The sultan complied with the request and 
dipped his face into the bowl of water. Suddenly he 
found himself in an entirely different place, no longer 
surrounded by his court, but far away on a lonely shore, a 
place entirely strange to him. Well, his first thought was 
(I suppose it was not an unnatural thought for an Ori- 
ental manarch) that his teacher had put an enchantment 
on him — that he was suffering from witchcraft of some 
kind. Anyhow he found himself on a strange and lonely 
shore at the foot of a mountain. Presently he began to 
get very hungry. He looked about and saw some men 
cutting wood not far away. He met and conversed with 
them and asked them to give him some food. They said 
if he would help them by working for them he should 
share in their food. Presently they gave him some food 
and he went home with them. He thought the enchant- 
ment was still going on and he did not know what to make 
of it, but he had to live this new life; so he settled down 
with the wood-cutters. He spent some years at that busi- 
ness and gradually amassed a little money, and bought 
goods in a small way and met with success and prosperity, 
and in the course of time became a rich merchant and 
married the daughter of another merchant and brought 
up a large family. Be had a married life of something- 
like fifteen or sixteen years, if I remember rightly. Then 
there came a time when he lost all his money, and remem- 
bering his old training he again took up wood-cutting. 
One day he was wandering by the seashore where he first 
came into this Btrange new life and was feeling very de- 
pressed by his change in fortune; then he said to himself, 
'•Let me take a bath in the sea, and perhaps 1 shall feel 
better. So he went into the sea to bathe and put his 

head under the water; when he lifted it up there fie was 



60 DREAMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 

with his courtiers around him and with his teacher stand- 
ing before him smiling. They say it was almost impossi- 
ble to convince that man that the whole of that long story 
was nothing in the world but a mesmeric suggestion made 
by his teacher; he had literally done nothing but dip his 
head in a bowl of water and take it out. I do not know 
whether this is true or not; anyhow things just like that 
are taking place. 

A good story which illustrates this point was told to me 
by a leading man of science. This man, like many of us, 
had to go to a dentist. He had to have a couple of teeth 
pulled out and of course he took gas in the usual way. 
He was a man who was very much interested in Theosoph- 
ical study, so he made up his mind he was going to see 
what were the real sensations through the operation. He 
was prepared to watch everything very closely. He in- 
haled the gas and was very much in earnest, very keen to • 
see exactly what was happening, but a sort of pleasant 
sleep finally seemed to steal over him, and in a moment he 
found himself delivering a lecture. He could not exactly 
account for this, did not understand how he had gone 
from the dentist's chair without remembering, into the 
lecture hall, but he was delivering a lecture before the 
Royal Society, and he found he was exceedingly and un- 
usually brilliant. He was able to make all his points in 
the most wonderful manner with much greater eloquence 
than he ever did before. He was very much elated. Ev- 
erything went off magnificently. He went home after 
the lecture and went into his laboratory and went to work 
in his usual way, but every experiment he tried came out 
successfully in the most marvelous manner. He was dis- 
covering all the while entirely new things, new and beau- 
tiful facts in nature; he lived through this life for about 
three weeks, a life of exceedingly real pleasure and enjoy- 
ment, continuing his lectures again and again, always to 
the most enthusiastic and appreciative audiences; made 
discoveries and wrote books such as never came into his 
mind before. One day he found himself lecturing as 
before to the Royal Society, when suddenly some rude 
man among the crowd said "It is all over now." He 
turned to rebuke this man, and another one said "They 
are both out." It took him some time to recover from 
the audacity of people speaking to him like that. When 
he revived he found himself sitting in the dentist's chair 



DBEAMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 61 

and he saw by the clock in front of him that less than a 
minute had elapsed (forty-five seconds I believe was the 
exact time), in which he had lived through this three 
weeks of exceedingly active life. 

That, at any rate, is not a story out of the Spectator, it 
is a story of the present day and told to me by a leading 
man of science. That shows how this ego is able to make 
up a story as he goes along, and how independent he is of 
all our ordinary canons of time and space, how he can 
make within an inappreciable time a whole long story. 
You will find a great many such stories in DuprePs book. 
He tells you of a man who falls asleep while smoking a 
cigar and lived through several years of strenuous life, 
and awoke to find the cigar still alight. 

There are a great many stories which show the powers 
possessed by this ego when away from the physical body. 
He also possesses the faculty of prevision to some extent. 

A leading literary man told me a very curious story 
about this prevision. He said that he was in the habit 
sometimes when he was seated doing nothing of getting 
what is called automatic writing; that is to say, if he was 
not thinking of anything particularly his hand sometimes 
would begin to write spasmodically, as happens at Spirit- 
ualistic seances and with mediums. This hand would 
sometimes write a message which professed to be from liv- 
ing friends as well as from the dead. In some cases the 
stories which were told in this way proved to be perfectly 
true although the friend never knew anything about it. 
One day he got a communication written in this way 
which professed to come from a lady of his acquaintance, 
and it was to the effect that she was in a very great state 
of annoyance and disgust because she had arranged to de- 
liver a lecture down at South Kensington, but when the 
time came for the lecture, by some foolish mistake it was 
found the notices had been issued for a wrong day and 
there was no audience there. She was very much annoyed 
at this. He met the lady a day or two afterwards and told 
Iter laughingly of this curious message that had professed 
to come from her. He knew quite enough not to suppose 
it did come from her, hut thought it was a trick of some 
sort by some spirit; hut he told her. She said that was 
very curious because Bhe was going to lecture at South 
Kensington within a week, and hoped it was not going to 
Come true. They laughed about it and passed on. Never- 



62 DREAMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 



theless it did come true; when a few days afterwards she 
went to deliver the lecture she found that very mistake 
had occurred and there was no audience there. Possibly 
it may have been her own ego (I do not know, of course) 
who foresaw this mortification which would come upon 
her and could not impress it upon her but tried to impress 
it upon the man who was more sensitive; tried to make 
him understand in order that he might warn her and pre- 
vent the mistake, which no doubt she could have done if 
she had taken it seriously. 

This same journalist told me on another occasion he 
had actually written through his own hand a communica- 
tion professing to come from another lady whom he knew. 
The story was to the effect that she had been forced prac- 
tically by the advice of her father and friends into a cer- 
tain course of action from which she was very strongly re- 
pelled. She had to do something against which in- 
stinctively her higher nature seemed to warn her, though 
she could give no reason for it. It was a question of mar- 
rying a certain exceedingly desirable suitor. She had no 
reason whatever to give against the man in any way, but 
had a strong inner feeling she should not accept him, yet 
she did it because she could give no reason and because 
he was very desirable in various ways. After a year of 
married life, however, her situation became absolutely in- 
tolerable and her intention was to commit suicide. She 
was just about to do this; this was the story written. The 
lady in reality was not married and knew nothing what- 
ever about the thing. The next time our friend, the 
journalist, met her he told her the story; remembering the 
other one which came to him he said perhaps this was a 
warning. He described the man and his characteristics. 
Now she knew at the time no one who at all answered to 
that description, but about a year afterwards such a per- 
son did appear in her life and she was pressed by her 
father and friends to accept his offer of marriage. At once 
the whole story which the journalist had told her came to 
her mind and she refused. She said openly "But for that 
I should certainly have given in, because I had no reason 
to give for my strong repugnance; I should have certainly 
yielded, but because of that I refused." Nothing there- 
fore happened, but if she had yielded it does not seem at 
all improbable, judging from the other case, that the mis- 
ery and unhappiness might have followed. If so, that 



DREAMS AXD THEIR SIGNIFICANCE, 63 

shows where this sort of prevision may be of use, where 
the person is able by taking warning to avoid part of the 
evil. These previsions frequently come to the ego in what 
we call dreams, and it is just as well that we should heed 
them when they come. 

There are all sorts of allegorical dreams that come to 
us. I have said the ego often thinks in symbols. Some- 
times he gives you the interpretation of the symbols and 
sometimes he does not. You have probably all heard of 
various interpretations of curious dreams. You have 
heard people say, for example, that to dream of water 
always signifies that trouble is coming. One does not see 
why the dreaming of water should make trouble, but that 
seems to be the explanation among those who know about 
that sort of thing. I presume we may take it that the 
ego is aware of the fact that if he can make the impression 
on the physical brain he can warn him of approaching 
trouble; so he may take advantage of such an idea, curious 
superstition though it seems. In order to do what he 
wants he uses this method because he is not yet able to 
control his vehicle perfectly, otherwise the ego could im- 
press upon the physical brain the knowledge of what was 
going to happen quite definitely and there would be no 
need of the symbolical system; but he himself seem> to 
think largely in symbols, and the symbols differ in very 
many ways with different people. 

I remember, for example, a lady who used always to 
dream of a great fish whenever misfortune was coming to 
her family. Once she was away in the North of England 
a considerable distance from her home and Bhe dreamed 
that this greal fish Lit two fingers off her little boy's hand. 
She had had tin- cnrious impression often enough before 
to think there was something in it, so she was not sur- 
prised when she got a letter from her governess in charge 
at home saying thai two fingers of her boy's hand had 
been seriously injured by a playmate with a hatchet. Very 
Curious, hut obviously a symbolic prevision and an at- 
tempt by the ego to prepare her tor the new.- which was to 
come, ><> thai Bhe Bhould doI he as much upsel by it a- she 
otherwise would have been. 

1 am trying to cut the thing shori because 1 know that 
the time for a lecture i- necessarily very limited, hut if 
you w.mld like to have it all in much greater detail you 
can gel it by reading that Bmal] look which I wrote on 'the 



64 DREAMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 

subject of dreams; but I want just to give you a list of the 
kinds of dreams that are possible. 

First of all, this ego, going away from the physical body 
may have a real, definite experience of some sort. It may 
go to some place and see certain things. It may meet 
some person and converse with him. In the morning it- 
may be that the man will be able to bring back a recollec- 
tion of what has happened,. 

There would be a case of the true dream, which might 
be called perhaps not so much a dream as a vision. 

Then, again, there is this sort of prophetic vision by 
which the ego gets a glimpse of something that is about 
to happen, usually to him or to some friend whom he 
knows, and then he comes back and delivers that message 
to his brain; the brain reports it, but in some confused 
way usually, because it has been all the while outlining 
up old memories and these things are liable to be mixed 
with the true report which is brought back. 

Let me give you an instance from our experiments tried 
in the London Lodge. We were trying experiments with 
people in this sort of way: We would formulate a very 
strong image, let us say, of a landscape, or face, and then 
try to impress that on the mind of the sleeping man and 
see whether we could make him dream of this, as it were, 
and then whether when awake he would have any recollec- 
tion of it. It was in this way by such experiments that 
we discovered the habit of the etheric part of the brain to 
bring up old memories and turn them over and over when 
other thought was shut off from it. We found it was im- 
possible entirely to quiet it, because when outside thought 
was shut off from it it began evolving memories of its 
own. Without giving you all the details of the experi- 
ment, I may tell you that we tried to image to the ego of 
the sleeping man a splendid landscape in the East, a very 
beautiful view from a mountain peak on the Island of 
Ceylon, with other mountains all covered with verdure, 
falling away in the most beautiful gradations from it on 
all sides; forty miles away you could see the Indian Ocean, 
making a kind of setting for the picture — one of the most 
splendid views I have ever seen. We tried that view on 
various people, for example on some quite uncultured 
egos, but we found they did not respond to it at all, and 
did not see the beauty of it; whereas ai. battle scene 
impressed on that same undeveloped ego would at once 



DEEAMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 65 

awake in him, not a memory of what he had seen, but the 
dream that he had been fighting! You see at once how 
that would be; it conveyed not a recollection of the scene 
but a vague thought of something connected with fighting; 
he thought of the thing at once in relation to himself, that 
he had been engaged in fighting. We tried this experi- 
ment of putting this beautiful landscape before the mind 
of another and farther developed ego, and in this case a 
very remarkable result was obtained. 

The ego at once fastened upon it, as it were, and was 
intensely impressed by its beauty and very much in- 
terested in it in every way. At the same time observations 
were being made of the etheric brain of this sleeping man; 
a kind of magnetic shell had been put around it so that 
no outside thought should drift into it in order to give 
him a chance to remember more clearly, as we thought, 
the scene we were putting before him — the whole experi- 
ment being to see how much he would remember, and, if 
there be any distortions, what they would be and how they 
arose. Here was this beautiful view put before the man; 
in his astral body he enjoyed and appreciated it and we 
thought was more likely to remember it distinctly than 
the former subject. Then we turned to examine the 
etheric brain of the man to see what was going on there; 
it was carefully shut off, you will observe, from all outside 
thought, but evolving thoughts of its own. The particu- 
lar scene which it had before it was something that had 
happened in the playground of his old school years and 
years ago, a winter scene in which the boys were snow- 
balling one another. That was very slowly in sleep going 
through the etheric brain while the man himself was en- 
joying this other splendid view. Then the man was 
awakened, and then came the question what did he re- 
member. He remembered that view from the hill; he had 
the view as clearly as possible, the shape and arrangement 
of those hills were given, and he was able to draw part of 
it, able to describe it with great accuracy, but all these 
hills were covered with snow instead of being covered, as 
they should have been, with tropical verdure! And while 
he was in the midst of the enjoyment of this splendid 
landscape, suddenly the whole thing changed into the 
playground of hie old school and he found himself play- 
ing there with other boys. 

That shows you the way things get mixed in dreams 



66 DREAMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 

Part of the thing may be a remembrance of earlier life. 
When the shell is not around the man's body then all sorts 
of wandering thoughts may drift in and cause confusion 
when the real ego comes back with his tale of what he has 
seen and done it has to make its way through all these 
memories before it gets into the brain; so the whole thing 
becomes mere confusion. It is only by long experience 
that a man can learn to sort out the real impressions given 
by the ego from these transitory fragments of other 
thought. It is not an easy matter to sort them out, still 
that example will show you exactly how the thing is done. 
I would say if you are interested in this subject study the 
little book which I have written on Dreams, and study the 
book of Duprel on the "Philosophy of Mysticism." You 
will find many other books on psychological subjects, but 
few so interesting as Duprel's. 

On the subject of dreams, then, I would suggest to you 
to take a middle course; neither be supeistitious and be- 
lieve in everything which you happen to dream, nor, on 
the other hand, be foolishly skeptical and cast aside all 
dreams as unworthy of attention. Remember that you 
are told in your Scriptures that people were warned of 
God in their dreams, and sometimes exceedingly valuable 
and useful information may be given to you in that way 
by your own higher self or by some friend deeply inte- 
rested. If you happen to dream frequently and if you 
have reason to suppose there is something special in your 
dreams then it is worth your while to test them. For ex- 
ample: Suppose you dream of being in a friend's room; 
look around very carefully in that room and see whether 
everything in it is exactly as when you were last there in 
the physical body; if it is then you have no definite proof; 
your dream may be merely a recollection and suggestion. 
But suppose you see alterations, some new piece of furni- 
ture, some new disposition of it, a new picture on the wall, 
a fresh book on the table that you know did not belong to 
your friend before. If you see that in a dream it is dis- 
tinctly worth your while to go round and call on that 
friend in a day or two and see whether the alterations 
have been made that you saw in your dream. If they have 
not, it is simply a mistake of some sort. If they* have, 
then you have seen that place and you have really gone 
there in your sleep; then you can realize that what you 
thought a dream was in point of fact an experience, and 



DREAMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 6? 

that would be of value for you to know. So, I say, take 
the middle course, not superstitiously believing every- 
thing and troubling yourself about things which come to 
you in dreams, nor, on the other hand, foolishly rejecting 
everything. Be very careful as to the arrangements you 
make before you sleep, because you can very largely affect 
your dreams. Remember, your last thought before you 
go to sleep is a matter of very great importance, so start 
your night with a good thought in your mind, as many 
people go through the night practically elaborating their 
last thought, and rarely get beyond it. Let that last 
thought then be a good one, be a thought of health per- 
haps for someone else, because then you can go and give 
them help when you are away from your physical body. 

That is another vast subject; you will find that touched 
upon in the book which I wrote called "Invisible Help- 
ers." It is an exceedingly interesting subject. You will 
find sometimes you will dream very much, at other times 
not at all. From the various points I have given you 
about the different vehicles and the necessity of their all 
collaborating if good results and memories are to be ob- 
tained you will not wonder at all that it is very rarely you 
get such a perfect arrangement. There may be times 
when nothing at all comes, when the man does not dream 
simply because he cannot bring back any memory; or he 
may bring back a mass of confused memories when he is 
disturbed. But for the man who is highly developed there 
is no longer any dreaming possible because he gets the 
consciousness through fully into that astral plane, there- 
fore night and day become the same to him; he carries an 
unbroken consciousne>> through and remembers every- 
thing that he does on those other planes; he dreams no 
more because he has got beyond the stage of dreaming 
into the stage of knowledge, and then he sees opening up 
before him a magnificent vista of usefulness and of help- 
fulness; he is able to use these higher faculties, to use 
them not only for his own evolution 1ml (what is BO much 
more important) to help forward evolution generally. 
Thai i^ the higher world into which lie obtains admit- 
tance, and remember that admitance into that higher 
world may be sometimes obtained through the gate of 
dreams; If you realize that then yon Bee that your dreams 
an- imt altogether unimportant, that the subject is an ex- 
ceedingly interesting one, and one that will well repay 



G8 DEEAMS AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 

your careful study. You will find a great deal of informa- 
tion in our Theosophical literature that will lead you into 
further examination of these higher planes, and so into 
the Theosophical concepts on the subject; and I am 
sure that when you thoroughly understand it you will be, 
as all of us are, very thankful you undertook the study 
and gained the splendid knowledge which that study can 
give you. 



Rev. T. DeWitt Talmage. 

His Influence on the Thought of To=day ; His Life On 

Earth and in Spirit State. — Given Through 

Mrs. Cora L. V. Richmond. 



"Now we see through a glass darkly; then face to f ace." 

"What we are we know; what we shall be doth not yet 
appear." 

Within the last few days there has passed from earth, 
from human sight and human affairs, one of the most 
prominent clergymen of this country: Eev. T. DeWitt 
Talmage. 

His life, like that of Mr. Spurgeon in London, marks 
with its closing a certain cycle of theological thought, a 
certain order of ministration of religion. We might just 
as well say here, that we think Mr. Talmage's life almost 
closes that kind of theological ministration. 

We are not here to discuss Mr. Talmage personally. Of 
course, his life, his associations, and his relations were not 
only his own, but he was, undoubtedly, true to his con- 
victions in every walk of life. We believe he was true to 
his convictions in his theological life; for no man could 
fully accept or preach the kind of religion that Mr. Tal- 
mage did, if he did not believe it. He would try to evade 
it, he would talk about something else, as a great many 
ministers of the same and similar denominations do. But 
he did not seek to avoid doctrinal sermons, he did not 
seek to turn away from the severity of the creed which he 



REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE. 69 

believed. Therefore, we think he was sincere. Perhaps 
between hypocrisy and that kind of religion it is better 
to be sincere, whatever one believes. 

But with the passing of Mr. Talrnage that kind of re- 
ligion ceases to have sway over a very large number of 
people. 

Owing to a peculiar arrangement of the Associated 
Press his sermons had a very extensive circulation. We 
do not say that a great many people believed in his the- 
ology, but he had a great influence personally. He was 
a man of strong convictions and opinions, and a nature 
whose opinions would blind him to the truth, if it differed 
from those opinions. We do not think that he ever 
willfully falsified against any liberal movement, but his 
convictions were so strong against them that he believed 
the statements that he often made, we mean concerning 
the Liberal churches, concerning the Spiritualists, con- 
cerning all things that were not in accordance with the 
theology which he believed in. 

A great many people are sincere in their statements 
when a little effort would convince them that they are 
mis-statements. A great many people do not wish to be 
informed if their opinions are wrong. This is the case 
often with scientific men, so-called, as well as theologians. 

When Mr. Huxley said he "would not cross the street 
to find out if Spiritualism were true" he proved his nar- 
rowness and bigotry, notwithstanding his supposed sci- 
entific enlightenment. We say it is quite in keeping that 
he might make some statements of opinions that are 
grounded in prejudice, and that having prejudice for 
their outgrowth must, of course, narrow down the out- 
look of the individuals in an age like this. 

Some people have the courage to look at a subject 
through an open window; others only look at it through 
a key hole; others do not look at all; and that constitutes 
the difference in the point of view concerning the 
thoughts that are in the world. But for the most part 
the world is moving, not only scientifically and in all 
directions of human thought, but the theological world is 
impelled by the greal undercurrenl of change thai is go- 
ing on in the world, despite prejudices, and the clergyman 

that can see this and float with the current is the popular 
minister of to-day; while the clergyman that can see this 
and endeavors to resist it is often popular for his 
resistance. 



70 REV. T. DEW1TT TALMAGE. 

Mr. Talmage reached a class of people that do not, as 
a rule, do their own thinking — religious thinking; in fact 
think it is wicked to have opinions that are not in accord- 
ance with the religious teachings they have received; and 
he reached psychologically a much larger class, a class 
that has no opinions, or do not know that they have any 
opinions and are moved or swayed by the powerful 
thoughts that come in their way. All such clergymen 
reach their followers either through fear or through a 
swaying magnetic impulse. 

Henry Ward Beecher was largely a man of impulse; he 
swayed by his great magnetic heart. He had a good brain, 
but unless his heart was in his sermons he did not preach, 
it was merely talk. Mr. Talmage probably had a heart, 
but his sermons were full of the theology in which he had 
been trained, appealing to the fears of the people. 

When we say that the cycle of fear is passed, we mean 
it. We mean that the world, in Protestantism, has so far 
advanced that sectional and sectarian barriers are re- 
moved; that creeds are being remodeled; that when the 
Presbyterian Church can change the creed that has been 
handed down almost from the time of John Calvin, it 
means progress. When the church to which Mr. Talmage 
belonged can go so far as to have one clergyman preach a 
liberal Unitarian sermon, while another preaches per- 
haps, Orientalism, it shows the world changes its religion, 
and its theology along with it. 

That Mr. Talmage exercised such great influence, seem- 
ingly, must be owing to the fact that people are easily con- 
trolled through their fears. Far other was the influence 
of Mr. Moody, the revivalist. He did not so much appeal 
to human fear as to human love to rescue people from 
their danger. To rescue souls from darkness of Hades he 
presented a strong picture of a lost soul; he presented as 
the influence of his life the exalted love of Jesus to save, 
it was the salvation of God's love that he presented most 
effectively. 

Of course Mr. Talmage considered ethically a great 
many of the propositions of human life; presented them 
vigorously from his standpoint. But the underlying the- 
ology of his existence was the theology that appealed to 
human fear; to the possibility of bein^ eternally lost. 
Souls were to be saved in Mr. Moody's religion and the 
love of Jesus was to save them. In the building 
and teaching of Mr. Talmage souls were to be saved, 



REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE. 71 

but they were to be saved by having the picture 
presented to them of eternal torment, of being lost, and 
being urged to fly or escape from doom. Mr. Spurgeon 
also was that kind of a theologian or preacher. He would 
picture to his people the heat — or supposed heat — of 
Hades, and he would slide down the bannisters of the 
steps that led to his pulpit to illustrate to his people the 
rapidity with which people went to hell. A great many 
of those things were exaggerated, yet he was perfectly 
conscientious and sincere. Mr. Talmage took occasion to 
visit some of the mining regions of England when he was 
abroad, where the ore was being wrought out in the fur- 
naces while there, and afterward he described it to his 
friends, telling them that he considered hell a literal place 
and a million times hotter than those iron furnaces. Of 
course, believing that, it would be his duty to try to save 
souls from such a doom. 

All the sweet logic of the Sermon on the Mount, all the 
petition of the Golden Rule, all the life and love of Jesus 
could not avail when the horror of such a picture has to 
be presented; and at this moment, if the mass of the peo- 
ple could be shown a literal picture of Hades, like that 
shown in the play of Faust, or purgatory exaggerated, and 
people believed it to be true, would they not from very 
fear fly to the religion of Jesus? It would not be for the 
love of Jesus, but for the fear of Hades. Witness the 
panic in a fire, or when there is a storm at sea. It is very 
seldom that human faith, however well trained in the 
Christian religion, prevents a panic. Here and there a 
devotee may be calm; here and there a philosopher, who 
does not claim to be a church member, may be calm. But 
the great instinct of human life is to fly from danger 
physically. When that danger is presented as a moral 
danger, a spiritual danger, and when the fire instead of be- 
ing transient is eternal, you do not wonder that people try 
ing transient is eternal, you do not wonder that people 
seek to fly from it if they can be made to believe in the 
literalness of the fire. 

It seems a strange thing, when you turn to the first four 
Gospels in the New Testament and read exactly what 
Jesus taught, how there could be considered such a 
Hades, such a religion out of the few simple utterances 
there recorded. Of course Paul waa the doctrinarian of 
( Christianity. But it is very difficult to find a literal hell- 



72 EEV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE. 

fire even in the writings of Paul. Human fear, which is 
the basest of human passions, cupidity and ignorance con- 
stitute the foundation for that kind of teaching. And yet 
it must serve its purpose. It is the stepping-stone to 
something higher. Perhaps it is this belief in the fear of 
Hades that refines the gold of the spirit and sends it forth 
purer. Then it gives to the mind another suggestion. It 
is a very subtle, psychological suggestion: that people do 
not believe it after all; that although the mind may accept 
it and the fears may be dominated by it, the soul does not 
believe it, for every human being who actually believes in 
the literal, eternal hell-fire would be bound to be insane. 
We have known of a great many mothers who have been 
driven insane when the ministers have told them that 
their children were in hell. We have known a great many 
people whose hearts rebelled against such a thought and 
who turned away from the austerity of such a creed, and 
the rest, without knowing it, have a protest down deep in 
the spirit — an a priori knowledge that it is not true; or 
else they hold a slender thread of creed or of hope on 
which they think that their loved ones may cross to a 
place of safety; the "deathbed repentance," at the last mo- 
ment, in which the spirit may admit or acknowledge the 
great supremacy of Christ. There is always a chance of 
escape. But if it were true that you believed that any 
friend of yours, any child, any sister, any brother, any 
father or mother, wife or husband were literally in Hades 
you would not be human if you were not insane. 

With all his sincerity, with the power which we ascribe 
to Dr. Talmage, with the great spirit of invective, with 
the spirit of misrepresentation, with the thought that he 
believed what he preached, we think, nevertheless, that 
there was down deep in his spirit a certain protest; that if 
his intellect had been broader, or he could have burst the 
barriers of precedent, he would have spoken more liberally 
in his later days. But having committed himself in any 
one direction he did not have the courage to retract. He 
did not believe that he could retract; he even reiterated 
things that were not pressing in order to be literally true 
because of this spirit of blindness, this prejudice. Later 
on, as his life grew older he did, indeed, endeavor to adapt 
his sermons to the needs, the growing needs, of the people. 

We remember he gave a series of sermons, not many 
years ago, on "The Occupations of Spirits in Heaven." 



REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE. 73 

Having read the Bible very carefully, especially the New 
Testament, you know there is very little said about what 
people shall do in heaven there. As Mr. Talmage did not 
admit the possibility of spirit communion, or of modern 
visions or seers, we often wondered from what source he 
received his information concerning the occupations in 
heaven? He never vouchsafed to tell. He did not say 
he had a vision like Dante, or like the prophets, or that he 
was upon the Mount of Transfiguration with Jesus and 
the two disciples; he did not say that any of those "min- 
istering spirits" referred to in the Bible had told him. 
But he seriously talked about the occupations in. heaven 
as though he knew. Does not that prove that when a 
man says there can be no intercommunion between the 
two worlds, he, after all, knows there is intercommunion? 
Because without intercommunion, one way or another, no 
human being could tell what are the occupations of souls 
in heaven. 

Perfect as is the flood of inspiration accompanying the 
present spiritual teachings thai are in the world, the 
"many mansions in the Father's house" are closed and 
sealed, unless by visions through angelic presences or by 
ministration through spirit communion those states are 
revealed, and no man knows what the "many mansions" 
hold. If Mr. Talmage was a seer, then all he said against 
Spiritualism must be accounted false. If Mr. Talmage 
had messages from spirits, then that controverts what he 
said about the impossibility of spirit communion; and if 
all spirits are "lying spirits sent to deceive," then might 
not he also have been deceived? These are contradictions 
that do not occur to the ordinary minds, to the minds in- 
tent on believing whatever their pastor says; to the minds 
that do not think that he preaches sermons one year that 
contradict the sermons of the next year, or the reverse. 

But people accept that which they like to believe. The 
best minister is the one who tells his people their own 
thought-: the best minister is the one who tells you what 
you would like to say if you had the language. If your 
• deals are high and your minister tells you those ideals arc 
true he pleases yon; if you are seeking for money in the 
world, and your minister tell- you how to gel it. that 
pleases you. He may also tell you to be honest, to have 
integrity, hut that you do not have to literally ohey the 
Golden Rule, and you like him for that. We have heard 



74 EEV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE. 

ministers of as great popularity as Mr. Talmage, saying to 
their congregations, that the "Golden Eule was never in- 
tended for practical life." What was it intended for? If 
it was for life in heaven, why was it not kept there instead 
of being imparted to earth? If intended for an ideal life, 
apart from business, why was it thrust into human exist- 
ence? Or was it only to apply to the Great Teacher and 
not to all who followed him toward the fraternity of man? 

Oh, no! you "cannot serve God and mammon." And 
yet some Christian clergymen tell you you can, and tell 
you so in many of the churches of this city and those on 
Fifth avenue, New York. The sermons that are preached 
at the head of Wall street in Trinity Church are very ten- 
der of the feelings of those who try not to think that the 
Golden Eule is intended for daily use. But when the 
Eev. Dr. Huntington, fresh from the heart-beats of the 
people, consecrated his life to their service, said he was 
going on a missionary tour to Fifth avenue, he meant that 
there was more need of missionary work there than at the 
Five Points. Just the spirit of what Jesus said when he 
said "the publicans and sinners" — with whom he sat down 
to their table — "were nearer to the kingdom of heaven 
than the scribes, pharisees and hypocrites." 

The great baptism of true humanity is rising in the 
world, and we are glad that Mr. Talmage has done his 
work and passed on to his reward, because he must have 
felt the waning tide of that theological life that brought 
him into such great notoriety; he must have felt the sands 
receding from under his feet that formed the foundations 
of that "house of God" which could not save the souls 
that He is said to have made; he must have realized that 
the great tide of human affairs was setting the other way 
spiritually or religiously. 

Though his successor in name and in theology repeats 
very weakly some of the things Dr. Talmage said years 
ago, it is but a faint echo, it bears no trace of the original 
vigor. But this vigorous life expended itself in the great 
energy he used in building a false fabric of the future, a 
fabric destroyed by knowledge; and his going forward 
among the multitude to do his work is a spectacle; it is 
presented as a picture. 

We have sometimes wished that people had half the en- 
ergy in advocating a work for the truth of the Gospel that 
is merciful and loving and free. If people would exercise 






BEV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE. 75 

one-hundredth part of the enthusiasm over a religion of 
love that they do over a religion of fear the world would 
be in the millennium. But you see they cannot. 

We were told very seriously by a noted Unitarian min- 
ister, that he thought that the hold upon human thought 
was waning in the Unitarian church, and we asked what 
he thought was the reason? "Well," he said, "the mo- 
ment people begin to think for themselves they do not 
think there is any need of thinking together, they each 
start on an exploring expedition of their own." Of course 
there is no authority in the Liberal churches; fear and au- 
thority constitute the source of energy and power in the 
evangelical and in the Eoman Catholic churches. There 
is no better piece of mechanism than the organization of 
the Koman Catholic church. But it is grounded in the 
fears of the masses. 

There was not a better piece of humanitarian influence 
than that which Mr. Moody strove to exercise in his great 
revival work; but that also was founded in the fear of 
humanity. There is no better or more merciful organiza- 
tion in the world than the Salvation Army; but it is to 
save souls from hell. 

If humanitarian societies; if the people could be per- 
vaded by as great love for humanity to save them from the 
slums, and from the existing conditions of human life, 
there would be an upward movement instantly. Jane 
Addams illustrates what can be done with love for hu- 
manity in their present state. 

Souls are valuable, therefore God does not mean to lose 
them; humanity here and now is given to man's charge 
and the great Philanthropic work of the church con- 
stitutes its stronghold. It is not the mystic rites and 
ancient truths of Freemasonry that bind men to it; it is 
the spirit of fraternity, of loving kindness and loving 
service. Every human being ought to do for each other 
that which they bind themselves to do in the lodges of the 
Freemasons. When Christianity came into the world this 
principle was recognized by the few, and every human be- 
ing recognizing it made a pledge by thai recognition to do 
good to his fellow-man. What is the need of fraternal or- 
ders if the spiril of Christianity prevails? And what i- 

the need of all this talk ahoin SOTllfl when it is the body, 

the mind and tin.' spiril that are to be trained to express 

the BOUl? 



76 REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE. 

Mr. Talmage taught that only a portion of human be- 
ings were to be saved. He did not arrogate to himself the 
right to say the number or to designate those who were to 
be saved; he spoke vigorously of those who would not he 
saved, and urged people to fly from the conditions that 
were not conducive to salvation. 

In the changes of human life, at the last moment of 
existence there is always another message; there are 
always ministering ones attending those who are to pass 
from earth; there is always more or less consciousness of 
this transition; there is always preparation. But you may 
be perfectly well assured, that during the interval between 
the last of human consciousness and the realization, in its 
fulness, of the spirit state, that there was preparation for 
Mr. Talmage on his entrance into spirit life. Yet with 
all preparation and whatever there may be in the spirit of 
hope, whatever uplifting power of faith, you can also be 
aware what a vast surprise awaits every human life on 
knowing that the body is really cast aside and the spirit is 
consciously set free. The ordinary human life is not so 
much surprised as two extremes: the materialist and the 
theologian. The materialist is surprised to find himself 
alive, and very much doubts that his body is dead, then he 
proceeds sophistically to say, "Even if my body is dead 
this is only a little effervescence outlasting the body, 
which will also pass. This is a sort of a delirium which 
will shortly pass away." But when there come thronging 
around the spirit of the materialist those friends supposed 
to be dead who welcome him, the surprise of the material- 
ist more and more increases. Not long ago, the late 
Eobert G. Ingersoll, whose spirit spoke through the in- 
strument who stands before you, said, "it was as though 
the scales had fallen from my eyes." When the theolo- 
gian hopes to enter the kingdom of heaven, that which he 
has described to his people; when he expects to be wel- 
comed by angels and borne into the presence of Jesus, and 
perhaps of the Infinite; when he has pictured to himself 
that which shall be his reception; possibly, if he is favored 
of heaven with that exalted, immortal state; when his 
fears have been merged in his faith so that he dares to 
hope for that estate; you may imagine his surprise when 
he sees around him the familiar friends of his childhood 
and his youth; when he sees the loving ones of his own 
household; and when there is no great gala occasion, 



REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE. 77 

when there is nothing of the prevision of the great apoca- 
lypse, no passing away of the earth and the rending of the 
veil, nor angelic presences to herald him into the presence 
of eternal life when all is dust, but it is only the next step 
of existence. 

Yet so conscious does the spirit become with the throw- 
ing off of the earthly organism of its own inadequacy, of 
the lack of spiritual possessions, that every spirit enters 
spirit life from the human state with some degree of hu- 
miliation. So after the first greeting there is a season of 
introspection, and the spirit meets what it sows, reaps the 
harvest of the seeds that have been planted, and, if suffi- 
ciently advanced or aware, perceives the inadequacy of 
that planting. 

What do you suppose must be the thought of the Rev. 
T. DeWitt Talmage when he sees no fires of Hades, when 
he hears no voices from those who are condemned, when 
he meets face to face his friends and companions, and 
even those with whom he differed in theology; and when, 
above all, there is no sound of rustling pinions, no open- 
ing of ineffable gates; but he enters the spirit state for 
which he is prepared by the thoughts and deeds done in 
human life? 

It is a surprise to every human life. We do not follow 
any spirit into those introspections and reflections that 
are for the individual spirit alone. We give that which 
is granted even by the most of earth's relations and 
friends, we give the spirit the solitude that belongs to the 
disembodied spirit. When that spirit enters into its own 
inheritance it is known within and it is known to God. 
There are none to point fingers of reproach or scorn, 
none to praise unduly. Every life sees that which it has 
sown. With the greatest tenderness, and with a devotion 
in which human love has become spiritualized the friends 
of the earthly estate receive those who pass from earth. 

Do you not suppose Mr. Talmage is happier in his spirit 
home, surrounded by his friends, the relations of earth 
and those who were COngenia] with him, than lie would he 
in a far-off heaven with the knowledge thai Made- had 
engulfed some of his companions and friends? And do 
you not suppose it is greal relief to any kind-hearted and 
affectionate human being to find thai the fires of Hades 
are within instead of without, thai the judgmenl there is 
a voice from within the soul instead of an external censor 



?8 £EV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE. 

or judge? Even though every human life walks into its 
own portion of the shadows that have been fashioned by 
itself, is not that a great merciful respite compared to 
what has been taught by theology? 

Now after this shall have been learned, do you suppose 
that there is anything that will prevent a sincere, honest 
spirit from endeavoring to un-teach that which was wrong 
in his teaching; to help the people out of the fear that he 
must have engendered by his false theology? Whenever 
the great awakening comes, whether it be at the moment 
of transition or whether by slow degrees it dawns upon 
the spirit, that spirit must teach that intercourse with 
spirit friends is possible and continues as long as love 
abides. 

Such time as Dr. Talmage learns that there is no literal 
hell-fire, and that the way to the kingdom of heaven is 
within, will there not be for all the rest of the time that 
any human life is on earth that is swayed by his influence 
enough for him to do? And such as have passed to spirit 
existence and have found his teachings not true, will they 
not be willing teachers and helpers of him, who, like the 
revivalist, was tethered in the small cobweb of his own 
fashioning out of the theology in which he was reared, 
and fettered by that until death set him free. 

And if through the shadows that thus arise the glim- 
mering of this perfect immortal state, and the love of 
mother, father, child, brother, sister and friend shall come 
cleaving in, how blessed to know that neither the the- 
ological heaven nor the theological hell holds any other 
soul when that life outgrows the thought. Then the 
great mission and ministry must be the unsealing of the 
eyes of others. 

When John Calvin awoke to the enormity of the crimes 
committed under the name of religion, he felt that 
eternity was too short for him to undo what he had done. 
Now hither and thither, night and day over all the earth 
and in spirit states wherever a mind can be impressed, 
wherever a minister can be told he inspires from within 
by the voice of truth, that there is no hell save that which 
is within. Like John Calvin, seeing that the seething 
fires of Hades are not true, will not the true spirit of Mr. 
Talmage, rising from his place of theological bondage and 
amenable to the light of the new religion, set the seal on 
this which has been said and speak from out the voices of 



REV. T. DEWITT TALMAGE. 79 

the skies for this man who has risen and say: "Whereas 
he was blind, now he sees; whereas he was deaf, now he 
hears, and the light of the spirit has burst through these 
barriers and mists of theological shadows and behold! he 
will become as one of those who like little children shall 
be led by little children and shall teach the kingdom of 
God's love. 



Cycles and Their Significance : 

Relation of Spiritualism and Easter. 



A Lecture Delivered by Daniel W. Hull, at Villa 
Ridge, Illinois, 



"For Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us." — 
I. Cor. 5:67. 

The word "Christ" in this passage, is an untranslated 
word, and means "anointed." A better reading of the 
passage would be "For the anointed our passover is slain 
for us." While Jesus was a Christ, or anointed, he was 
not the only Christ. There were Christs before his time 
and also after his time, Jesus was slain, if we may credit 
the biographies given us, on the day before the passover 
Sabbath; which comes immediately alter the first full 
moon after the vernal equinox, and as the passover Lambs 
were slain at the same time it required no great stretch of 
poetical figures of speech to make him a passover. Be 
became a passover, by virtue of the time he was slain. 

A word or two by way of apology is necessary here. 

There arc a great many people who are horrified when 

thcv find a statement verified by something in the Bible. 
One of the greatest reasons I'm- tin- is, because their 
knowledge concerning the Bpiril of it> teachings is so 

superficial. They think they know all aboul it, and will 
quote a long Btring of very obnoxious texts t<> prove in 
you they do. These people will he surprised when they 



80 CYCLES AND THEIE SIGNIFICANCE. 

learn that the Bible nowhere professes to be a book of 
authority, threatening punishments or promising rewards 
in another life according as people shall accept or reject 
its teachings. The trouble is, that they have accepted the 
teachings of those who claim they are the' authorized ex- 
ponents of its teachings. 

It may surprise some to learn that the Bible is not a 
single book, but a small collection of books which was 
kept by the Jewish people. Some of these were bio- 
graphical, some historical, some spiritual and some 
mythological. The biographical were somewhat like our 
biographical books of this day — they aimed to make 
heroes of their subjects, by leaving out their faults and 
extolling their virtues, often at some expense to the truth. 
The historical, I regret to say, were not always exact, but 
since we have historians in our times a bit given to ex- 
aggeration, we should not complain. The accounts of 
spiritual manifestations no doubt were overdrawn, but 
since the relation of spiritual narratives were similar in 
manner of production and manifestation to occult mani- 
festations of this time, we may be assured they have a 
foundation in fact. The mythology of the Bible and in- 
deed all pagan books have been sadly misunderstood. 
Beneath the symbols of paganism and Hebraism were 
great truths, which for want of a knowledge of the subject 
taught and our poor comprehension of the tropes and 
figures used by scholars of ancient times we are unable to 
comprehend. What the world does not comprehend, it 
invariably condemns. To philologists and people who 
want to learn the roads by which modern civilization has 
reached its present altitude, the Bible is an invaluable 
book-. We do not study the Bible as authority in matters 
of religion, ethics or conduct, but to find out something. 
In some sense it interprets to us the ancient mode of 
thought, and some of the habits and characteristics of peo- 
ple who have bequeathed to us much that has given shape 
to our lives. We find by a critical reading of the Bible 
and observing of its literature with that of other books, 
that many things within it have been wrongly interpreted 
by us, simply because we have drifted our ideas and 
changed our environments. Language has also changed 
and is ever changing, so that words have lost their former 
meaning. 

To illustrate, the word "God" has now a very different 
meaning from that it represented in some of the earlier 



CYCLES AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 81 

mythologies, including the Hebrew. Once it was limited 
to the forces of nature, referred to astrology or 6pirits of 
departed men and women. The word OM or AUM was 
all-inclusive in its meaning. It usually referred to the 
potency and directness of infinite nature. The Infinite 
was not only incomprehensible, but it was also unspeak- 
able. It was not matter, neither was it the essence of 
matter, but a sublimation of the essence of matter. It 
had no locality, and though it infilled all matter it could 
scarcely be said to be an attribute of matter. It would be 
more proper to speak of matter as a property of AUM. 

At this time many people are disputing over what they 
call God. A thinking man would not enter into any of 
their disputes. A God who is supposed to rule the uni- 
verse must be infinite in all his parts, and as such a being 
is beyond description and even comprehension, his exist- 
ence can neither be proved nor disproved — it must be per- 
ceived by the spiritual senses or not at all. It may in- 
definitely be conceived, but no one can conceive it for 
another, and that a man cannot conceive it for himself is 
no evidence that he is incorrigible; neither should we re- 
gard a man who believes such an entity in the universe as 
superstitious. 

Religion proves to us, as many other things do, that 
there has been a civilization in the world little inferior in 
some respects to the civilization which we pride ourselves 
belongs exclusively to this age. We are apt to condemn 
people who pass judgment without previous investigation 
on Spiritualism. Yet we as Spiritualists treat other re- 
ligions in the same way. Men who bring down the ap- 
plause of an audience by their condemnation of the Bible, 
often know as little of the spirit of its teachings as those 
who condemn Spiritualism know of the spirit of its teach- 
ings. All religions have a common origin, and all are in 
very many respects similar. And I might say, nearly all 
have a basis of Spiritualism mixed with their astrology 
and nature worship. 

CYCLES. 

In most of the great religions, time is divided into 
cycles. Anciently, time was divided into days, weeks, 
moons, years, etc., and, excepting weeks, each period was 
Bgail) divided into a light and a dark half, thus claiming 

that these divisions exisl in nature and arc independent of 
all artificiality. A week was the fourth part of the moon, 



82 CYCLES AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 

the end of which was celebrated as a sabbath, the word 
meaning sun worship, the moon only being a time keeper 
to direct the mind to the proper time for worship. All of 
the feasts, and I might say the whole ritual of the Jewish 
religion was regulated by the moons — generally the new 
moon. As the moon could not be equally and exactly 
divided without breaking the day into fractions, it was 
assumed that there were 28 days in a moon, and that it 
quartered each seven days. The sabbath would then come 
on the last of each quarter. T Ve are told that Abraham 
came out of ' Ur of the Chaldees, where we find the 
divisions of time exactly corresponding to that afterwards 
adopted by Moses and the Hebrews. The Hebrew sab- 
baths came somewhat artificially, and perhaps the Chal- 
dean sabbaths did also, and did not follow the exact 
divisions of time as marked off by the moon, gaining a day 
in the time of each moon. This probably was because they 
misunderstood the purposes of the sabbath, but this defect 
was compensated for by making the moon a measure for 
the division of time. The moon or month was made to 
correspond with the 24-hour day. It was a day, having a 
light half and a dark half. 

The years were also divided into a light and a dark half, 
or into a day and night, regulated by the motions of the 
sun in its descent into the southern skies and its reappear- 
ance again into the northern skies. But like the moon 
the sun loses a little time in reaching the same point in 
the heavens each year. That is, he seems to fall back in 
the ecliptic. This is called the "precession of the 
equinox," and amounts to about one degree in 72 years. 
This the Hindoos call a Saura year, or day, and is sup- 
posed to have a light and dark half to it, for the Hindoo 
was very precise in his cycles and supposed everything in 
nature to be a type of something still greater. The loss 
of time each year which in 72 years amounted to one de- 
gree would in 2,154.86 amount to 30 degreees, which 
would take him out of that sign into the next one. This 
he supposed to be composed into a light and dark half, 
and was called a Brahma day. Then there was a day of 
the Gods which was only reached once in 25,856 years, 
when the sun had fallen back through the entire circuit 
of the heavens or .the twelve signs of the zodiac. This was 
supposed to occur in the sign of Scorpio, and at that time, 
all the planets would arrive at the same point in the 



CYCLES AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 83 

heavens with the earth. And then the earth would be 
burned up with fire. In Grecian mythology we are told 
that when Phoebus drives the chariot of the sun around 
the universe, when he conies into the Constellation Scor- 
pio, he drives so near the earth that he sets the world on 
fire and burns it up. I believe all religions contemplate 
a universal conflagration, when the earth will melt with 
fervent heat. I presume any schoolboy would be capable 
by taking the planets and dividing this time by their 
periods learn whether the planets would actually get 
together in that length of time. If they should it would 
be difficult to tell what might happen. Last year when 
Jupiter, Saturn, the earth and Venus were in line with the 
sun, the electric forces became so disturbed that the in- 
tense friction thus caused made the heat almost unbear- 
able. Think what would be the result if nine instead of 
four planets were to get in line. Fortunately, however, 
the sun at this time is supposed to enter Scorpio at the 
time of the vernal equinox, which being three months be- 
fore the summer solstice gives the earth time to move 
three signs out of the line before the sun's heat shall com- 
bine with the heat caused by the friction of the planets. 

But there is to come out of all this a new earth. It will 
then be purified of all that was evil and will commence a 
new era of sinlessness. Thus we learn the origin of many 
things which have now become sacred to us, and we also 
learn that the nun we call pagans were not so simple- 
minded as we thought they were. 

Then there were other cycles, also, in the Hebrew re- 
ligion, and I believe also in the Chaldean religion. 
Among the Chaldeans Astar, or Istar, the moon, was ex- 
alted as a deity, and through the authority of this deity 
by its example time was divided into sevens. In fact sev- 
en- and twelves are both sacred numbers, the one dividing 
tie- moons and regulating the summer months and the 
ether dividing the year. As we have seen in mythology 
each year is called a day. Qothing would he more natural 
than that an immense moon should he hypothecated to 
correspond to the moon controlling the days. Thus they 
found authority for their Babbatical years, and every sev- 
enth year was Bel apart a- a sabbatical year, iu which the 
land was to rest. Everything in their field- and on their 

vines were given over t<» the poor. These sabbatical wars 
were again multiplied by themselves, and the fiftieth year 



84 CYCLES AND THEIE SIGNIFICANCE. 

was made a year of jubilee. On this year all debts were 
canceled and all bondmen or slaves were given their 
liberty and allowed to commence life anew. This was to 
them the end of the age often translated to us the end of 
the world, and it commenced on the tenth day of the sev- 
enth month, measuring the months from the first new 
moon after the vernal equinox. The first jubilee was cel- 
ebrated in B. C. 1451, and the last one in B. C. 600. I 
shall want to call attention to these facts shortly. 

THE PASSOVEE AND EASTER. 

The Passover and Easter always occurred at the same 
time of the year, but only occasionally on the same day of 
the week. The reason of this was that the Passover oc- 
curred on the evening of the 14th day of the first moon in 
the year, while Easter occurred the first Sunday there- 
after. Yees was a title of the sun, and our words yeast, 
yes, and east and also west come from them. The He- 
brew Passover was used, it is claimed, to express the pass- 
ing over by the angel of death at a time when the Egyp- 
tian infants were slain, but it really signifies the crossing 
over the equator of the earth by the sun, which in doing 
so not only slew the old year, but also the constellation 
Aries or the Lamb. The sun is always represented as 
killing every constellation he passes through. When 
Samson went down to Timnath you will remember he met 
a lion by the way and slew him. Samson, or Shem-shem, 
is the sun and his seven locks representing the seven sum- 
mer months of the year, and he passes through the con- 
stellation Leo or the lion, and thus kills it. Now we read 
that the next time Samson went that way he found that 
the bees were occupying the carcass of the lion and had 
made honey in it. We know that that cannot be literally 
true, for a bee is a very neat insect, and would not deposit 
honey in so loathsome a place, neither can we think of a 
man taking of the honey and eating it. In olden times 
the constellation Leo was represented by a lion with a 
honey-bee flying out of his mouth, simply to show that at 
that time of the year 'the honey-bee was most active in 
gathering his honey. So as the sun passes through cer- 
tain constellations it is represented as killing them. Here, 
then, we have our Passover lamb — a "lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world," or age, that is from the time the 
sun took up his abode in that constellation at the time of 
the vernal equinox. 



CYCLES AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 85 

In the Egyptian mythology we are told of the death of 
Osiris. A while ago, I said that Spiritualism forms a 
basic principle in nearly all religions. Osiris was an 
Egyptian king and priest, the two offices being confined in 
one person, as was often customary in early days. His 
tomb was found in some excavations only about four years 
ago. Spiritualism was blended with astrology, and for 
some reason, perhaps because Osiris was translated to the 
sun, he became a representative of the sun, and instead of 
killing the constellation, he himself was slain once every 
year by Typhon, the evil genius. His coffin floats down 
the Nile and becomes locked in a tree that grows around 
him. This occurred on the 21st of each December ac- 
cording to our time, but he is found by Isis his wife, and 
is again brought to life on Christmas day. Thus the old 
year is put to death, but a new year is born into existence. 

Mythros of the Persians was also slain by Ahriman the 
evil genius. Ormuzd was the supreme Deity of the Per- 
sians, and Mythros was a mediator who was required an- 
nually to give up his life. Mithraism spread all over Asia 
nearly two hundred years before the Christian era and was 
the prevailing religion down till the beginning of the 
fourth century. Constantine himself was a Mithraist be- 
fore his conversion to Christianity, and as his Christianity 
made no change in his ritualism or anything else observa- 
ble with him, the presumption is that he was a Mithraist 
even after his professed conversion to Christianity. By 
an edict, however, he required all Mithraists to become 
Christians. Any observer of human nature readily sees 
that in such cases men will profess to be one thing, to 
avoid persecution, while at heart they are another. In- 
stead of becoming Christians, Mithraists just changed 
names and gave the name of Christian to Mithraism, and 
made no other change than to accept some of the pagan 
gods that through the Greeks and Romans had crepl into 
the Mithraic Church and attach to them the names of cer- 
tain saints. What we now call Christianity is only 
adulterated Mithraism. 

Thus it came about that Christianity abandoned its 
Passover and substituted the Easter of Mithraism in ii- 
stead, including Dearly all the other institutions of that. 

cult. The word "PaSSOVer," as I said awhile ago, means 

crossover. The snn crossed the equator at that time, and 
thus we come to have the equinox — that is, equal nights. 



86 CYCLES AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 

Hitherto the nights had been longer than the days, but 
now they are shortened and for a day or two are of equal 
length with the days, then the days become longest. This, 
then, is the day of redemption, and as the lamb is slain by 
the passage of the sun into the sign of Aries, we are 
"redeemed by the blood of the lamb/ 7 Let it be under- 
stood, then, that Christianity did not invent this pharse; 
it found it already made to hand and appropriated it. 
When Christianity appropriated it, it was accustomed to 
paint its crosses with a lamb hanging on it. 

Let me say that none of these facts disprove the exist- 
ence of such a man as Jesus. They only show that in 
taking up the reformer Jesus, and extolling his character- 
istics, that they mix Mithraic mythology, just as modern 
writers take up the biography of Washington and mix into 
his theology some of this same Mithraism now called 
Christianity. 

Spiritualism was born on the 31st day o^ jularch, 1848, 
and to-day we are celebrating its 54th anniversary to- 
gether with the tenth anniversary of this society. There 
is something remarkable about this. The moon had fulled 
just the evening before, and this was the first full moon 
of the year. It came then at the exact time of the Pass- 
over, and no doubt in an early day at the beginning of 
each year at the vernal equinox they regulated their first 
day of the week accordingly, so that the first day of the 
week was always the beginning of the year. Thus Easter 
Sunday commenced on the identical day of the Passover. 
This is a remarkable coincidence; but there is another co- 
incidence, and that is that the regular time for the Jubilee 
commenced on the 31st of October of this year. The 
jubilee had not been celebrated since B. C. 600, and then 
only in a small way, as it was claimed by Jeremiah that the 
captivity was a punishment for the offense of violating 
sabbatical years. The first jubilee occurred B. C. 1451, 
and the last one occurred B. C. 600, and just fifty jubilees 
from that time, that is, a jubilee of jubilees, takes us down 
to the 31st of October, 1848. It is a remarkable co- 
incidence that Spiritualism should have its birth at the 
right time of the month and year to hit the Passover, and 
it is still more remarkable that Joshua kept the Passover 
at the very same time of the year and month, that is what 
would be our 31st day of March that Spiritualism was in- 
augurated. I know this to be true, for I have taken the 



CYCLES AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE. 87 

pains to calculate the time of the month as now we count 
time, it occurred. There are 28 to one chances against 
having the Passover occur on the same day of the year and 
month. Had Spiritualism been born a few months earlier 
or later or even a few hours earlier or later it would have 
failed to fit in the cycle. It came at a time when several 
cycles meet in the same year. 

Easter is a prophecy of spring and summer; the flowers 
of Easter are the promise of ripened fruit. It is a time of 
rejoicing; for then we know that the long reign of 
Ahriman, or Typhon, or Satan has passed, and that the 
coming summer will bring us comfort and happiness. 

So Spiritualism was the promise of a new era. The 
dreary mutterings of the pulpit were to either change 
their tones or be relegated to the darkness of the dark 
ages where they belong. No more should people be con- 
fined to the cold, cheerless theologies which consigns nine- 
tenths of the world to regions of eternal despair, just be- 
cause of the freak of an erratic creature, by the blind re- 
ligion of the day called "God." It was announced that 
Benjamin Franklin had contrived the scheme by which 
the world of souls was brought in touch with the world, 
and the first message to the world was that this was the 
inauguration of a new era. The communication when 
rapped out read as follows: 

"You must proclaim these truths to the world. This is 
the dawning of a new era, and you must not try to conceal 
it any longer. When you do your duty, God will protect 
you and good spirits will watch over you." 

Afterward a letter addressed to Mrs. Fish by her grand- 
father stated: 

"My Dear Child: — The day will come when you will 
understand and appreciate this great dispensation. You 
must permit your friends to meet with you and hold com- 
munion with their friends in heaven. 

"I am your grandfather, JACOB SMITH." 

Now friends in Spiritualism, a great trust has been com- 
mitted to our keeping. Arc we worthy of it? It is here 
for the purpose of enlightening the world. It came in 
one of I lie greai cycles when it was due 1 1 is a great re- 
sponsibility that is placed on ns. It IS the ushering in of 
the millennium that is entrusted to ns. Oh, let us do our 
work well. 



The Relation Science Holds 

to Natural Philosophy; 



Its Conflict with Every Phase of Religion.— Written 
by Prof. W. M. Lockwood. 



The numerous discoveries made by scientific investi- 
gation during the last quarter of a century, have so far 
made its inductions popular, that now every divergent 
system of belief within the domain of sociology would 
fain employ it in verification of their respective claims. 
Nothing is more common than to hear an advocate of a 
dogma or creed cite an induction of science in confirma- 
tion of some creedal claim postulated in the domain of the 
unknowable, which postulate if accepted, will have a ten- 
dency to impress the popular mind with the data and pro- 
portions of a scientific proof in the conclusions reached. 
The avidity and eagerness with which all of these assump- 
tive speculators will grasp at a scientific thought when it 
seems to promote the truthfulness or strength of their 
claim, is only equaled by the unqualified zeal with which 
they will repudiate both science and its formulas, when- 
ever its inductions are antipodal to, and refute their 
claims The prevailing looseness with which this class of 
superficial thinkers employ the term, is manifest in the 
fact that it is constantly referred to as a schism, and in an 
individualized sense, when in reality the term science is 
a general term applicable to those formulas of research 
by which every branch and department of human knowl- 
edge is established. Hence it is the name of a method by 
which natural philosophy as a sequence to scientific in- 
vestigation is verified; and being the name of a method of 



SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 89 

verification, it cannot be at the same time the name of the 
fact which it demonstrates. 

SCIENCE AS CLASSIFIED. 

One writer affirms that "science is classified knowl- 
edge." Another, that "science is reasoned truth;" and 
another that "science is the knowledge of nature, its laws 
and functions;" and still another affirms that "science and 
religion will, when man becomes spiritually unfolded, be 
seen to be one and the same." 

To all o:E this vague and inconsistent statement we shall 
enter a most hearty protest. "Science is a system of in- 
ductive and deductive reasoning. It is a formula of 
demonstration, as applied to the inductive method, and of 
syllogistic reasoning as applied to the deductive; hence it 
can never be employed as a synonym for knowledge, phil- 
osophy or truth, since it is only the method by which 
knowledge and truth are established. To illustrate: 
Mathematics in its application, is the science of quantity; 
but quantity, per se, is not science, but the result of math- 
ematical deduction as applied to processes of reckoning 
quantities. A lumberman's rule is a scientific mechanism, 
so figured as to enable the dealer to tell at a glance when 
he lays it upon a board or stick of timber, the number of 
square or solid feet contained in the lumber thus meas- 
ured. But the rule itself is not science; neither is the 
pile of lumber measured science; nor is our knowledge of 
the square feet in the pile of lumber science, per se, since 
our knowledge is the result of a system of scientific meas- 
urement. Electricity is measured in volts of energy and 
ohms of resistance; but neither volts, ohms, nor electricity 
is science, since volts and ohms are only units of measure- 
ment, and electricity the energy measured. 

Chemical combination depends upon the reciprocal 
polarity of combining molecules, reckoned in volumes; 
but neither the volumes of the elemental energies that 
enter into the combination, nor their molecules or the 
compound evoked, can be termed science, since chemical 
science is the system of analysis by which our knowledge 
of chemical data is made known by demonstration. These 
facta being in evidence, it will be seen thai knowledge is 
the synthesis to scientific analysis; the resull of inductive 
and deductive reasoning. By the term "scientific know 1- 



90 SCIENCE AMD PHILOSOPHY. 

edge/' we mean that superior order of understanding and 
comprehension which scientific analysis only can educe. 

The invisible and primary motion belonging to, and 
individualizing each element of nature is at first only 
known through or by the phenomena of its actions and 
reactions in combination with other elements; yet these 
phenomena have been so accurately tested and classified, 
that to-day the progressive physicist points out seventy- 
two, possibly seventy-four elements that enter into and 
become factors in the visible and invisible processes of 
cosmic evolution. 

FLIPPANT LOOSENESS. 

It is the especial sphere of the student and experi- 
mentalist in scientific research, to deal directly with the 
invisible attributes of nature, through the phenomena of 
the visible. His thoughtful intellect first suggested the 
term, "modes of motion" as applicable to that invisible 
relation which one element or factor of nature holds to 
another; also to suggest that the ganglia of conscious sen- 
sation in man, are only avenues through which invisible 
methods of impressing his consciousness connect him to 
his environment. The flippant looseness with which the 
popular mind refers to science as the name of knowledge, 
instead of the method by which the data of knowledge 
and truth are established, and the reckless disregard they 
manifest for the real facts upon which the scientific intel- 
lect builds, is open evidence that their acquaintance with 
the formulas of science begins with a desire to conserve 
the name of scientific synthesis when it can be warped 
into the seeming support of some individual or popular 
schism, and ends with zealous disregard for anything sci- 
entific, when it is antipodal to their claim, or no longer 
conserves their speculative interests. Let us amplify this 
fact. 

After being taught in school that nature is a unit — that 
all of her forces and energies are eternally co-related; 
after listening to the declarations of learned pulpiteers 
that the entire universe is a vast system of harmony, a 
modern writer makes this counter statement. In speak- 
ing of Spiritualism he says: "Spiritualism is truly a sci- 
ence. Mathematics is not more surely fixed as a science 
than is the science of life here and hereafter, called Spir- 
itualism." "But," this writer goes on to say, "it is a 



SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 91 

spiritual science differing from natural science as widely 
as spiritual things differ from material things." So, if 
the assertions of the writer are valuable, "nature is not a 
unit;" and the universe is not a vast system of harmony, 
since it includes two antipodal systems of science; the one 
for the material, and the other for the spiritual world. 
Now the opinion of this writer, however opposed it is to 
the inductions of natural philosophy, will find a warm 
response in the mentality of public opinion. That cosmic 
science has nothing to do with spirit or spiritual things, 
still lingers in the popular mind, a relic of past forms of 
thought, as instructed in the days of Calvin and Cotton 
Mather. 

THE MENTAL TANGLE. 

Here is another pen picture of the mental tangle that 
a modern writer gets into when affirming the incompe- 
tency of scientific method to deal with spiritual things. 
The writer lays down the two following postulates, both 
of which are incomplete and erroneous, and contain in 
their application grave inconsistencies. The writer 
affirms in postulate No. 1: "Science is the knowledge of 
nature, its laws or functions." Postulate No. 2: "Spirit 
is nature manifesting in these laws or functions." 
Affirmation. "To test the higher by the lesser is effort 
misapplied — the reverse of cause and effect." 

If spirit be considered the higher, and science the 
lesser, then applying postulate No. 1, we analyze that to 
test nature (which is spirit in manifestation) by science 
(which is our knowledge of nature), is effort misapplied. 
In other words, to test nature by knowledge, "is the re- 
verse of cause and effect." Most unfortunate are these 
postulates that both admit and deny the central proposi- 
tion; for it will be seen that if science is knowledge of 
nature, then science is knowledge of spirit and its mani- 
festations, and to the extent of this knowledge, science 
has compassed spirit and tested the higher. Here is 
another paragraph of the same kind of reasoning. 

"If there is that which is beyond science, and there is 
the great realm of super-consciousness in human exist- 
ence, that realm can take possession of science, can make 
science its handmaiden." - 

The realm thai is "above," "over," or "beyond" con- 
sciousness as applied to lack of knowledge of cosmic pro- 



92 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 

cesses, is ignorance. That the realm of ignorance can 
take possession of science is not true; that it has tried and 
still is trying to possess it, seems true, as it witnessed in 
the terms "Christian Science," "Occult — (obscure) — 
Science," and the like; but that it can make science its 
handmaiden is doubtful, since it seems more inclined to 
make it a mop. 

TALKING TJP A VACUUM. 

But however quaint and incongruous these postulates 
and paragraphs cited are, and in what beggarly states of 
incompetency the author attempts to leave science, we 
can agree that all such talkers and writers "about the 
scientific demonstration of Spiritualism, are simply talk- 
ing up a vacuum." Indeed, we might say with a great 
degree of truthfulness, that all such talk and criticism of 
science emanates in a vacuum. It will be a day of real 
emancipation of man from the fogs of ecclesiasticism — a 
real awakening from the hypnotic slumber of theological 
suggestion, when all of these expositors of ancestral be- 
liefs become sufficiently awake mentally to sense the in- 
tellectual poverty of their methods of reasoning, and the 
tattered and torn logic with its sequences, with which 
they seek to cover and bolster up individual opinion, or 
some remnant of oriental phantasy. Eyes have they, 
but evidently they have not read that fully twenty-four 
hundred years ago the philosophic intellect of that time 
declared the spirituality of all elements and substances of 
which matter is composed, which affirmation has never 
been disproved, but grows more luminous with the dis- 
coveries of modern time. Ears have they, but they seem 
dead to the fact that in nearly every college in the civil- 
ized world a chair is endowed to instruct that all nature 
and her processes are eternally co-related by invisible 
formula called "modes of motion." These facts being in 
evidence, we affirm that science does not deal with mate- 
rial things in the general sense in which that term is 
understood, but with those invisible energies and elements 
which the thinkers and philosophers of every age have 
called spiritual. Hence in exact language there can be 
no such thing as "a material science;" but we do have sci- 
ences of the formation of matter. Neither do we have 
"physical science;" but rather sciences of the evolution 
and development of physical organization. Besides these 
self-evident facts, science itself, in any and all of its ap- 



SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 03 

plications is a formula of intellectual sequences; therefore 
cannot be material or physical in the sense claimed. 

VIEWS IN EEFEEENCE TO GOD. 

No one ever saw the life principle of oxygen or hydro- 
gen, or that of any element or compound or form of ex- 
istence, as they are invisible spiritual entities, and are 
known to the physicist as life energies. It is a ludicrous 
commentary on the consistency of thought of these critics 
of science, who affirming "God as the first great cause," 
"The Infinite Intelligence" "who created the world and 
all cosmic process out of his Holy Spirit," that he — God — 
should have made a visible world; that he gave to oxygen, 
hydrogen, nitrogen, and all other elements of nature their 
respective life motions and established their combining 
proportions, that every form and ty pe of life was "a spirit- 
ual design;" and yet this God, this "First Great Cause," 
this "Infinite Intelligence," is accused in all of these loose 
criticisms, of being "A MATERIALIST," and the author 
of materialism. He is accused of creating the visible uni- 
verse of material things. Poor God! We feel sorry for 
him — thus to be libeled and lied about, if he is the author 
of the universe, by those who claim to worship him in 
spirit and in truth. Strange spirit of criticism that re- 
flects the authorship of materialism upon God who is 
claimed to have made all things from spirit by the 
omnipotence of design! What an uncertain and irregular 
ideal of "truth" and consistency of thought to affirm God 
as a spirit, and that cosmos and its processes were made 
and evoked by his "Holy Spirit," and then to denounce in 
dogmatic terms the materiality of its visibility and co- 
relations. 

Just to think, what a tremendous throb of spiritual 
volition is required on the part of the credulous penitent 
to make him believe that God, the Hebrew Jehovah, made 
infinitude in six days of the pagan calendar; lie also made 
self-existing principles called laws; lie made twice two 
four; he established the theorems (self-existing principles) 
of mathematics; and the equations (the polar balance of 
combining molecules) of chemical physics. More I has all 
of this, he established the combining proportions of the 
heterogeneous spiritual substances of which God is likej 
and in which he is, — all of this musl be believed. Whal 
a constant, prayerful, religions self-hypnotism is required 



94 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 

to keep the believers' faith in the possibility of these 
assumptions. And then to have pulpit and pew malign 
God for making a materialistic world out of his own 
spiritual substance, is, to say the least, unpardonable, and 
a libel upon "Infinite Intelligence." 

How inconsistently and questionably the human 
glorifies and honors his God, by claiming "a material sci- 
ence for the material world" which he affirms God made, 
and "a spiritual science for a spiritual world/'- out of 
which his God made the material universe. This almost 
universal method of imputing the crudeness of materiality 
and material things to God, comprises the fundamental 
idiosyncrasy of religious worship and belief. No wonder 
that Voltaire should say that, "One of the lovely proofs 
of religion is that it is unintelligible." When the critics 
and scoffers of science can get out of this rut of incon- 
sistency, when they are no longer in mental conflict 
within> themselves as to the relation of the invisible to the 
visible in cosmic process; when they are able to dis- 
entangle themselves from the mental dilemma they are in 
by assuming that God's spirit as a motion of omnipotent 
energy is in no way related to matter except by the domi- 
nation of miraculous power; when they cease to assume 
"material laws for material things," and "spiritual laws 
for spiritual things;" when they can free their intellect 
from all of this rubbish' of pagan concept and modern 
superstition, they will at least cease to traduce their God 
by reviling the material world which they affirm he made. 

PSEUDO SCIENTIST. 

The term, "pseudo scientist," whoever or whatever is 
meant by it, seems to be a common and convenient club 
in the hands of this constituency, to belabor and malign 
all those who favor the scientific method of -investigation, 
and who oppose the assumptive arrogance of an illiterate 
and dogmatic theism. The use of the term in this con-, 
nection however is a most unwise selection, but it fully 
indicates the lack of erudition and cogent common sense 
of those who employ it. 

The term "Pseudo" is from the Greek; and means, 
"lying" and "false." As these critics apply it to science 
or to a scientist, it is a paradox. In the correct use of 
words and their application there can be no such thing as 
a "false science" or a "lying scientist," so far as the term 
science applies to methods of demonstrating truth and 



SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 95 

knowledge. A man is not a scientist until he demon- 
strates truth; and in the demonstration of truth, he is not 
a liar. 

But unfortunately for our critics the term does apply 
with a strong emphasis to false and lying teachers and 
instructors; and we will submit that any cleric or teacher 
who instructs that God or Infinite Intelligence was the 
creator of Infinitude, is in every sense a pseudo teacher. 
Any cleric or instructor who affirms that in the cosmic 
order of time a God or Infinite Intelligence can be or is 
Infinite, is a pseudo instructor, since God or Infinite In- 
telligence has not existed to-morrow. Therefore we 
affirm that any God known to the canvas of time and the 
human imagination that depends upon the never-ceasing 
ticks of the clock of time for his unperfected infinity is 
as finite in the processes of time and in the duration yet 
to be, as any existence of time and space. And we 
furthermore submit, that any teacher or class of people 
who affirm God as the spiritual cause of all cosmic process, 
who instruct that matter which they claim God made, is 
"dead," and "crude," and "inert," thereby assuming that 
to this extent God's spirit is dead' and crude and inert, and 
that his effort to make matter o,ut of his spirit died in the 
material, not only vilify and traduce the spiritual omnipo- 
tence of the God they profess to believe in and worship, 
but they are the greatest infidels of the age, since all 
chemical experiments demonstrate that there can be no 
such thing as crude and dead matter. 

The antipodes are no further away from their opposites, 
than is the realm of cogent reasoning from the sphere of 
this ignorance and mental perjury. 

THE HUMAN MIND. 

It is this class of pseudo teachers, who are continually 
berating what they call the "finiteness of the human 
mind." Mind- is the mental expression of the soul; and 
if it can be proven as our critics claim that the soul came 
from God, then it is as infinite as God. If it be held that 
the soul is an evolution, then it is as infinite in duration as 
the factors that evoke and sustain it, and its province as 
a progressive entity is to discover more am! more of infini- 
tude, hence in no sense is this clerical criticism true. 
Man's mind and intellect is limited in knowledge and in 
its capacity to acquire it, but as a progressive soul, man is 



96 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 

not finite. These pseudo teachers not only instruct the 
finiteness of the human mind, but they continually criti- 
cise in terms of moral obloquy what they call "man's 
physical senses/' seeming to be entirely oblivious to the 
fact that in the constitution of man as a spiritual ego, he 
can have no such thing as a physical sense; for the reason 
that all sensations emanate in the realm of consciousness; 
and consciousness is a sentient attribute of the soul. The 
avenues and tracts of the sensory system connecting the 
external world to human consciousness may seem to be 
physical in their visible aspect, but their functions are of 
psychical character, since these tracts convey only invisi- 
ble modes of molecular motion to man's consciousness, 
which upon being impressed has sensation in accord with 
the molecular structure of the avenue through which the 
sensation is evoked. 

TUTELAEY GODS. 

The states of mental hypnosis upon the public mind in 
consequence of adherence to ecclesiastical beliefs, in con- 
nection with the prevailing ignorance of the cerebral re- 
lation of man's conscious principle to methods of sensa- 
tion and the general formulas of knowledge, give oppor- 
tunity for all this class of pseudo instructors to belittle 
not only mankind, but even the very avenues through 
which only he can have knowledge of his environment. 
It seems almost incredible that anyone, claiming to accept 
the inductions of science and the higher life, can continue 
to stake their morals upon the Bible of an adulterous age, 
and the claimed miracles of its numerous Gods. While 
affirming the central postulates of evolution, they instruct 
as the basis of literary ethics, the Mosaic theory of crea- 
tion. Assuming in private and public the inductions of 
geology and archeology as proof of the great antiquity of 
man, they continually refer to the Bible Adam as a fact. 
With the history of the various systems of theogony (the 
gods) of the nations of the past in every public library, 
they claim Jehovah — the Hebrew Yahve — a national and 
tutelary god of the Jews, as the Creator and First Great 
Cause of cosmos. x\ll tutelary gods and deities were the 
spirits of deified men, and are so accounted in all history 
and mythology. Now when any thinker refuses to be- 
lieve that the spirit of a deified man made the heavens 
and the earth, he is met with the epithets of "atheist," 
"infidel," "materialist," etc.; as an expression of public 



SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 97 

and personal contempt on the part of those in sympathy 
with this god of pagan idolatry. That science as the 
formula of inductive and deductive reasoning can gain 
the recognition of those under the cloud and in the foils 
of this hypocrisy and hypnosis will be rare phenomena. 
Whenever a man's zeal is so great that he can ask you to 
perjure your intellect in the acceptance of the principles 
of his faith, such zeal is greater than the man's moral con- 
victions of the value of truth. Science has always been 
of questionable value in the realm of religious faith. 
Indeed, we can say with the greatest truthfulness, that 
religious zeal and faith unfit a man to be a student of 
science, for the reason that with belief and faith estab- 
lished a mind is disqualified to investigate those facts 
which have a tendency to dethrone his faith. 

SCIENCE AND RELIGION. 

Religion postulates an unknown and unknowable God, 
either anthropomorphic, spiritual, or cosmic, yet possess- 
ing individualized intelligence and personal designs, in- 
finitely diffused through space and expressed in matter, 
as the "First Great Cause" of infinitude — of that which 
has always existed. 

Science postulates the eternal invisible elemental en- 
ergies of nature, infinitely co-related by principles of polar 
attraction and repulsion, with an inherent tendency to 
evoke higher forms of existence in the evolution and de- 
velopment of all cosmic phenomena. 

Religion affirms its God or First Great Cause as an in- 
telligence outside of matter, that molds it into form. 

Science affirms that the power and potency to evolve all 
forms of matter and types of life inheres in the elements 
of nature and in their combining processes. 

Religion claims matter to be "dead, crude and inert;" 
necessitating an omnipotent power with special designs to 
create forms of matter, and types of life. 

Science demonstrates that every molecule of the active 
principle of all known elements is an energizing life prin- 
ciple, which in its various spheres of combination evokes 
form and life of infinite variety of expression. 

Religion affirms God as the Firs! Great Cause as beyond 
nature and superior to it, therefore supernatural. 

Science affirms nature to be Belf-existenl and eternal; 
hence there can be do supernatural. 



98 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 

Eeligion pictures its God as possessing the character- 
istics and features of man with pro-creative function 
and capable of being pleased and displeased. 

Science sees no form or features of an anthropomorphic 
God, or of a First Great Cause in the analysis of Cosmic 
factors — it recognizes only co-related elemental energies, 
each of which is omnipotent in its sphere of action. 

Religion formulates the term "Law," as the edict, com- 
mand, or volition of its God, in the control and continua- 
tion of cosmic processes. 

Science affirms "eternal principle" as the order of 
nature, the factors of which were never made, nor can 
they be changed. 

All religions are based upon the concept of the duality 
of matter and spirit. 

Science postulates "spiritual infinitude," the elements 
of which are manifestations of an infinite variety of 
primordial spiritual substances, each of which so far as is 
known has its own individual polarity, which fact is 
ascertained by its action and reaction in combination with 
other elements. Hence the student in scientific physics 
affirms the eternal unity of spiritual elements and matter, 
matter being the product of the spiritual elements of 
nature, in combination. 

Eeligion affirms that God molds matter into form. 

Science demonstrates that the elements of nature com- 
bine upon a plane of "polar resistance," which means that 
elements resist combination until their individual polari- 
ties are mutually overcome by the action of other element 
or elements upon them. With reciprocal polarities 
mutually changed, a new system of polar combination is 
evoked, bringing with it and inducing the phenomenon 
of the compound. Science affirms that this combining 
process does not depend upon a God acting from without 
or within the combining molecules, but upon the mathe- 
matical and polar relation and amount of each of the 
combining elements by weight or volume. Upon the un- 
varying integrity of the data of chemical combinations are 
established the principles of the Chemical Balance and 
Chemical Equations, and the application of these cosmic 
principles demonstrates nature to be automatic and self- 
existent. The facts upon which the equational character 
of nature is established had their inception in the experi- 
ments of the immortal Lavoisier and Sir Humphrey Day; 



SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 99 

and with other facts subsequently discovered have been 
voiced in treatises on Chemistry and taught in schools, 
academies and colleges for nearly a hundred years, and are 
still being taught; while the infidels in the pulpits, the 
pseudo teachers en the rostrum and a large element of 
civilization "false 7 ' to the inductions and demonstrations 
of its own colleges and universities, continue to recite the 
errors and sophisms of ecclesiasticism and to accept its 
sorcery of the forgiveness of sin, its ordinations, conse- 
crations, dedications, and installations, platitudes and 
formula of pagan idolatry when its systems of theology 
and theogony, and its religion consisted in the worship 
of its idols Phallus and Yoni. That these low and sensu- 
ous ideals introduce Christianity and its ecclesiastical 
hierarchy, is witnessed in the recital by the evangels re- 
garding the birth of Jesus. 

COXSTAXTINE THE GREAT. 

The historical fact that "Constantine the Great," a born 
pagan who was titled "Pontifex Maximus," "Emperor and 
Supreme Dignitary of the Pagan Hierarchy," who lived 
and died a pagan, issued an edict in the year 321 changing 
the day of pagan worship from Saturn's-day to Suns-day, 
and another edict in 325 calling in convention the Nicene 
Council which fastened upon future generations the story 
of the phallic incest of one of the tutelary gods of the Jews 
as is testified in the tradition in the New Testament of the 
"immaculate conception" of Jesus, is historical and logical 
proof as strong as the testimony of Matthew, Mark, Luke 
and John, of the pagan origin of ecclesiastical dogma. 
The same Nicene Council issued a canon uniting in holy 
communication the festival of the phallic divinity Eastre, 
worshiped by the ancient Celts, and the festival of Bele- 
tine (Baael worship) as practiced in the north of Ger- 
many, and our modern Easter, all and each of them of 
phallic origin. Let the thinker think. The fact that 
these monstrous dogmas have given birth to 328 distinct 
hybrid religious Bchisms, each with its salaried priests and 
sign-boards pointing oul "the only true way." and cadi 
proclaiming "the gospel of glad tidings," thai '"I am the 
only true way" — "all of the resl arc infidels, heretics and 
sinners," is further evidence of their pagan origin, and of 
their persistent adherence to pagan methods of demon- 
strating the superiority and divinity of their respective- 
religions. 



100 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 

That continuity of life can ever be established and 
proven by any of these ridiculous schisms, is an inconsist- 
ent sophism. That the time will ever come when science 
and religious platitude will be one and the same, is the 
idle dream of intoxicated religious zeal. 

THE SUPERNATURAL. 

All religions deal with the supernatural. Science in- 
vestigates only the natural. All religions include faith in 
the mythical, the wonderful and the miraculous. Science 
repudiates the miraculous and the metaphysical, and re- 
sorts to thorough and consecutive analysis before it pre- 
sents its truths. Religion asks only blind adherence to 
faith. Science demands demonstration. A religion that 
contains an unknowable postulate, is antagonistic to sci- 
entific investigation and analysis. As all religions known 
to the page of history and modern thought, do contain 
unknowable factors, there can never be a scientific re- 
ligion. Spiritualism in its synthetic analysis has none of 
the features of religion; for the reason that its premise 
established in the infinite spirituality of all of nature's 
forces, affords an orderly and logical analysis of the 
natural features by which we demonstrate in precise se- 
quences the philosophy of the evolution of the soul of 
man as a progressive entity of nature. Hence its philoso- 
phy is capable of the most careful analysis, while its syn- 
thesis will be found to be composed of logical sequences 
containing precise data. 

In a general sense Spiritualism is the philosophy of the 
possibility and capability of the spirit of the human after 
its disembodiment, to make its individuality manifest to 
those still in the form. Not only this, but it demonstrates 
how this mental association takes place, by an analysis of 
the natural co-relation of all cosmic elements and forces, 
which must include mental, cerebral and conscious modes 
of motion. While Spiritualism contains none of the fea- 
tures of religion, its system of synthetic ethics transcends 
in beauty and eloquence of thought the progressive pos- 
sibilities of the human soul in the realm of spirit life, far 
beyond that voiced in any religion, or outlined by mortal 
pen. It's representatives are too progressive in intellect 
to consent to worship forever at the throne of a pagan 
god who can be pleased with the adulations and praise of 
ignorant humanity. 

The gods of all religious cults are relics of a mythologi- 



SCIENCE AXD PHILOSOPHY. 101 

cal and traditional past, and although voiced in Bibles 
and so-called Sacred cosmogonies they had their origin 
when it was customary to deify great men and claim their 
spirits lived in the Sun, Moon and Stars of Heaven, and 
to perpetuate their memories by voicing their caprices, 
passions and revengeful natures. Read the history of the 
fierce and revengeful character of the Jewish Jehovah as 
portrayed in the pentateuch, and his tutelary nature will 
be seen in every chapter. 

These gods of a sensuous past are fast disappearing be- 
fore the search-light of science and archaeology, and giv- 
ing place to the broader and wiser view that nature is in- 
finite in extension, automatic in its functional character, 
therefore will be unending in duration. 

The intelligent Spiritualist and thinker argues that in- 
finitude could not be infinite in capacity, unless its spirit- 
ual elements possessed all of the omnipotence and possi- 
bilities expressed on the canvas of time in cosmic evolu- 
tion. 

AS TO FIEST CAUSE. 

This omnipotent power and function of Infinitude in 
cosmic process, he offers in place of that which a pagan 
age ascribed to its numerous gods, and a modern theology 
so illogical ly represents in a "First Great Cause," or an 
Overruling Power. The consistent thinker affirms that 
there can be no First Cause to that which has eternally 
existed, or an Overruling Power in the infinitude of co- 
related forces — such thought end claim is assumptive, in- 
consistent, dogmatic and infidel to the inductions of uni- 
versities, colleges and a scientific age. 

The Saviors of Spiritualism are those who extend the 
boundaries of human knowledge and brush away from the 
intellect the fogs and nightmares of ancestral super- 
stitions. Its "all-seeing eye" is the demonstration that all 
factors of nature, all modes of motion have a polar and 
mathematical relation to its phenomena, hence mental 
modes of motion contain vibrations reciprocal and polar 
to other mentalities; and tin's principle is universal. 

The patriarchs of Spiritualism are the unnumbered 
dead, who in their time discovered truths before unknown 
and laid them upon the altar of human progression. Its 
apostles are all those in every clinic who are continuing to 
make new discoveries in the various avenues ,,f tin- sci- 
ences of cosmos, and who thus labor to make the to- 



102 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY. 

morrow of mankind wiser and better. Its code of morals 
is good health, reciprocal justice for the here and now, 
and a thorough knowledge of human environment. Its 
rewards, a growing realization of the possibility of human 
improvement during man's life on the earth plane, and 
continued existence and progression in a life beyond the 
grave — nature's own free gift to every son and daughter 
of mankind. 



As to the Existence of a God. 



Famous Mathematical Argument Critically Reviewed 
by Prof. J. 5. Loveland, Summerland, Cal. 



I am more than gratified at your enterprise in finding 
the author of the chapter in the Arabula about which 
there was so much discussion. I knew that A. J. Davis 
was not the author, but who was I could not tell. But 
the authorship being settled, with your permission, I wish 
to submit a brief review of the argument advanced by the 
writer. He claims that his essay is a mathematical demon- 
stration of the existence and universal activity of a per- 
sonal Deity. 

Everybody knows that mathematics is the exact science, 
therefore, if the argument is really a mathematical one,' 
nothing further can be said. No one will deny that 
2 plus 2 equals 4, nor that the whole is equal to the sum 
of all its parts. But have we any such demonstration in 
this article? I answer most emphatically, No! The 
author makes a most defiant challenge to anyone who 
should dare to controvert the logic of his contention. 
And yet I do not recollect ever reading anything more 
lacking in genuine logic than this effusion. Instead of 
being logical, it is a mass of rhetorical verbiage; and when 
you occasionally find a syllogism in form, it is completely 
vitiated by the fact that one of the premises is an un- 
proved assumption. But, in this respect, he is at one 
with every person who has ever attempted to prove a 
Peine person. He rejects Paley's argument, and points 



AS TO THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 103 

out some of its defects, and then perpetrates the same de- 
feet. He says Paley does not prove the fact of creation. 
Neither does he. Both of them assume creation because 
proof is impossible, also because neither could commence 
their argument without such assumption. Paley's argu- 
ment is far the ablest. It really includes our author's, 
but his cannot include Paley's, which embodies a purpose 
and the adaptation of means to accomplish that purpose. 
The fatal defect of Palej^s argument is, in the assumption 
of the identity of mechanical and vital action. He 
assumed sameness in the construction of a watch and the 
evolution and action of a living being. 

EESTS UPON ASSUMPTION. 

Our author submits that his "argument assumes a bold 
tentative." That is emphatically true, for his argument, 
from beginning to end, rests upon assumptions which he 
does not prove, nor even attempt to prove. After sub- 
mitting four statements as to the "true nature of causa- 
tion," he lays down his basic assumption in the following 
terms: "Causation alone resides in mind; that matter 
never can be a cause; and therefore, that every phenome- 
non in the universe is, and ever must be, but the effect of 
intellectual force exerted by pure volition." In another 
place he states it thus: "All the motions of nature are 
strictly mathematical. Then must it follow as a con- 
clusion utterly unassailable, that every effect in the uni- 
verse is produced by the immediate agency of mind." 

Now, if these propositions are admitted, there is no 
need, no room, for argument. It would be a needless 
waste of time. If every motion in nature; every tremor 
of every leaf on every tree in countless forests; if every 
ripple, on all the seas and lakes of the world; if every 
breeze, that stirs the air, and the endless motions of the 
millions of worlds in space, are "but the effect of intellect- 
ual force exerted by pure volition," then we have nothing 
to replv. AVe could only bow our heads and Bay, with 
YV. J. Colville, "all is God at last." But we deny the 
assumption and demand the proof. Why is it not pro- 
duced? Because there is none to produce. Is the mighty 
energy — Gravitation — which binds worlds and Bystema <>l 
worlds together, "intellectual force exerted by pure 
volition?"' I* il pure volition which causes the Btone to 
fall 10 feet in one second and twice as many (he next? Is 
"intellectual force" in direct ratio to the amount and in- 



104 AS TO THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 

versely to the square of the distance of bodies moved? 
These suppositions, absurd as they are on their face, must 
be accepted as truth if all causation resides in mind. 

But this causative mind acts in a most unaccountable 
manner. To-day it causes a gentle ripple on the face of 
the ocean, and to-morrow a tidal wave sweeps homes and 
people to sudden destruction. One day, the sun shines 
from a cloudless sky, and the next a tempest sweeps over 
a doomed city engulfing millions of wealth and unknown 
hundreds of people. Beautiful harmony exists in the ele- 
ments to-day, but to-morrow the cyclone desolates and 
kills. In one year, the seasonable rains cause plenty to 
abound, in the next they come not, and gaunt famine, 
with all its ghastly horrors, sweeps millions of starving 
wretches to most horrible deaths. 

But these are "phenomena of nature/' and are "but* the 
effects of intellectual force exerted by pure volition," 
affirms our author. It is useless to swell the catalogue of 
analogous phenomena, or point to the fact that there is 
not one iota of evidence that they are the product of men- 
tal causation. On the contrary, the prima facie evidence, 
addressing both matter and intellect, proclaims material 
causation. 

The writer assumes the absolute inertia of matter. But 
every one knows this to be false. All matter is in per- 
petual motion, so far as the whole is concerned, and only 
relative inertia can be affirmed of any particular part. 
And that every atom of material substance is in constant 
motion is, beyond all question, a fact. 

CAUSATIVE FOBCES. 

But let us consider the phenomena of life, in the vege- 
table and animal kingdoms. Here is a vast field of phe- 
nomena. Here is motion, continuous, and perpetual in 
a relative sense. As illustrative, take the human organ- 
ism. There is blood and nerve circulation — digestion — 
absorption — assimilation, growth and the repair of waste, 
etc. Our minds have nothing whatever to do with these 
numerous functions or motions of organic life. Our 
mental power is entirely dependent upon them, instead of 
being their cause. It is the saliva, gastric juice, gall and 
the pancreating secretions*, and not mind, which are 
causative forces in digesting the food. And it is air and 
electricity which purify the blood in the lungs, and not 



AS TO THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 105 

mind, which has nothing to do directly with the action of 
these vital functions. 

But air is matter, not mind. If matter is, in the abso- 
lute sense, inert, that is dead, incapable of motion, in fact, 
possessing no properties of its own, then it must be mere 
unresisting stuff, which mind can use as it pleases (pro- 
Tided that one thing can act on another which possesses 
nothing in common therewith). Such is not the fact, for 
we find ourselves limited on every hand by the properties 
of matter. The rock has hardness and weight, which 
limit mind in many ways. Water is a necessity, but it 
will run down hill in spite of mind. It will quench thirst, 
fire and life itself if we are immersed therein. It will 
buoy our ships, or swallow them up, if greatly angered by 
the winds. Electricity blazes in the air, produces tremen- 
dous concussions, and tears trees and other objects in 
pieces. It produces varied and powerful effects. Is it 
inert? Is it mind? Has it no properties? If not a 
causating energy, what is it ? 

ACTION OF THE SUN. 

Our Sun is the center of stupendous energy. It exerts 
a force equal to a horse power upon every square rod of 
the earth's surface, and lifts from that surface fifteen tons 
of water every year to a height of from two to five 
miles.. It radiates a constant flow of light in every 
direction for hundreds of millions of miles. It is con- 
tinually throwing immense masses of molten matter from 
a few thousand to two hundred thousand miles from its 
surface. The magnetic conditions of our earth are con- 
tinually modified by the influence of the sun. It is the 
potent cause of these and many other effects. Is the sun 
mind, or matter? Does it exert intellectual volition? 
The common sense answer is this: The sun is a center of 
causative energy, and exerts that energy entirely indepen- 
dent of any mind in the universe. In fact, the vast field 
of causation is essentially that of physical substance, while 
that of pure mentality is very, very small. 

Let us now grapple with our author's mathematics, and, 
if I mistake not, we shall find his mathematical argument 
as shallow as his positions upon causation. I will state 
his positions in his own words. 

"Proposition 1. The perception of mathematical truth 
evinces mind of a lofty order. Corollary: To evolve 
mathematical motions, or in plainer terms to work math- 



106 AS TO THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 

ematicajly, evinces mind of a still loftier order. For to 
evolve mathematical motions unquestionably implies their 
perception. Nothing but mind can work mathemati- 
cally." 

In reply, I submit, that it is not true that "the percep- 
tion of mathematical truth evinces mind of a lofty order," 
for every mind not semi-idiotic perceives such truth. That 
2 plus 2 equal 4 is perceived almost universally. By the 
ignorant as well as the learned. That the whole is equal 
to the sum of all its parts, and is greater than any one of 
them are mathematical formulaes comprehended by all 
people. "To work mathematically" does not "evince 
mind of a still loftier order." Zerah Colburn, when a 
mere boy, could work out mathematical problems in a 
most wonderful manner, but he never evinced any superi- 
ority of mind, and when his education was attempted he 
lost his boyhood capacity for solving problems. 

MUSIC. 

Music is mathematical, according to our author, but the 
great musicians have not evinced any loftiness of mind 
except in their own specialty. Blind Tom was a musical 
prodigy, but is said to have been almost an idiot in other 
directions. Sir Isaac Newton, notwithstanding his 
mathematical genius, was extremely credulous and super- 
stitious, as shown in his work on the prophecies. Zerah 
Colburn evidently did not comprehend the principles in- 
volved in his answers to the problems submitted to him 
for solution any more than do the children, who perform 
wonders on musical instruments with no instruction, com- 
prehend the science of music. 

Come with me to a beehive. Please observe the con- 
struction of the comb. No mathematician has ever been 
able to construct a series of cells of more perfect form for 
the utilization of space than does the honeybee. Here is 
mathematical motion and working; and here, according to 
our author, is mind of the "loftiest order." I can allow of 
no shuffling or dodging the issue. If there is any such 
thing as mathematical working, the honey-bee is the work- 
er, and hence "evinces mind of the loftiest order!" More- 
over, according to this Mathematical Demonstration, the 
bee is conscious of his capacity and comprehends the prin- 
ciples of mathematical working. 

Let us apply another phase of our author's argumenta- 



AS TO THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 107 

tion, or rather combine his causation and mathematical 
arguments together. 

We are still at the beehive. The beautiful, mathemati- 
cally formed comb is before us. Nothing more perfect 
for the purpose is possible. But it is an effect. A math- 
ematical one. It must have a cause. That cause must be 
mind — mathematical mind. Where is it? Step forth, 
honey-bee. There is your cause! Your "lofty type of 
mind." And it is neither male nor female. It is a neuter. 

But the comb is a perfect geometrical form, and it ac- 
complishes two purposes. One, as before stated, secures 
the most usable room with the least waste of space. Every 
cell has the same number of sides, and for thousands of 
generations the honey-bee has always evolved the. same 
perfect form. The other end secured, by this form, is the 
use of the least possible material in the construction of the 
comb-cells. This is an important item, for the cell mate- 
rial costs the bee much more labor than the honey stored 
therein. He thus makes his mathematics contribute to 
his economy. It saves labor. 

ESSENTIALLY PERFECT. 

Now, suppose we allow mind to the bee. Instead of 
being mind of the "loftiest order" it is the lowest. It is 
the instinctive instead of the reasoning mind. But, in its 
sphere it is essentially perfect. It never mistakes, and it 
never improves — never varies in its mode of working. 
Take the most profound mathematician, who had never 
seen the comb of the honey-bee, and require him to con- 
struct a series of cells with the greatest capacity and the 
smallest amount of material. How long would it take 
him to invent it? But the honey-bee does it as soon 
as born. 

To work mathematically does not evince the "loftiest 
order of mind.' For that type, we must look to Herbert 
Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall, Comte, Marx, Victor Hugo, 
Davy, Darwin and many others. 

In glancing over this production, one cannot fail to see 
that there is very great lack of argument even in form, 
but a great abundance of more illustration which is dig- 
nified with the appellation of 'Induction." This gives 
wide scope for the author's fertile rhetoric One example 
will suffice as answer to the whole series of inductions. 
We will select chemistry as that example. He grows en- 
thusiastic and eloquent over the definite proportions of 



108 AS TO THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 

chemistry. He analyzes a cup of water and finds the in- 
variable "two to one in quantity and one to eight in 
weight" of hydrogen and oxygen in its composition, and 
fiercely denounces as the "moral felons" of the universe 
those who reject his hypothesis. In the air and limestone 
he finds the same law of definite proportion. But these 
well known facts of chemistry prove nothing in favor of 
his assumption of a mathematical god revealed to him in a 
Texas flower. Until he proves the fact of creation his 
whole article is a mass of meaningless verbiage. The 
"moral felons" say to him, there never was a creation. 
All substance is eternal. In it exists atoms, molecules, 
tendencies, forces, which necessitate motion, which, with 
attraction and repulsion, cause endless sucession of forms. 
In chemical combinations there can be no different pro- 
portion, from the fact that the shape and gravity of the 
atoms is such that no other is possible. The very nature 
and properties of the atom and molecule necessitates the 
precise union which occurs. 

MEEE CHANCE. 

But, instead of answering the real position of the athe- 
ist, he disingenuously and falsely assumes that the atheist 
attributes all the wondrous phenomena of nature to mere 
chance. He knew, if he knew anything about the con- 
troversy, that every one, whom he terms "moral felons," 
was an advocate of eternal Order, and a denier of any- 
thing approximating chance. They affirm that the 
"Universe is a system of Perfect Order," which includes 
"Causes and Effects — Means and Ends — Instruments and 
Uses." 

Dr. Holmes or Emerson say chance? No! Both said 
"Order." That is, his labored document simply set forth 
the orderly method in which the phenomena of the Cos- 
mos occurred, as the result of the workings of eternal en- 
ergy. His attempt to get round this rational position by 
a long calculation of chances is an absurd effort to escape 
a real difficulty and bolster up his fallacies by a loud out- 
cry that Order doesn't do anything, and that law is not a 
force but a method. All intelligent persons know that 
strictly speaking law means method of doing, but they 
also know that the term is used far more frequently to ex- 
press energy, and especially in the phrase "laws of 
nature," where it almost invariably signifies the forces of 
nature, instead of the mere order or mode of action. This 



AS TO THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 109 

statement of fact scatters to the winds his long disserta- 
tion upon law, and leaves intact the reply of Holmes and 
Emerson — "Order" — as a complete answer to his labori- 
ous rhetorical lucubration. 

It would be germane to this review, to here introduce 
argument showing the impossibility of Creation. That, 
of itself, would be sufficient answer and refutation of the 
essay under consideration. But instead, I refer the reader 
to a recent article of mine in The Progressive Thinker 
demonstrating the absolute impossibility of Creation. 
Hence, without repeating the argument, I remark that it 
completely overthrows the main contention of our author, 
and leaves his article as a simple statement of the inher- 
ent, uncreated causation and mathematics of nature. 

OXE OF ITS WEAKEST FEATURES. 

But, as I purpose a thorough refutation of this much 
discussed essay, I call special attention to one of its weak- 
est and most offensive features. I do not refer to the vin- 
dictive abuse of unbelievers, though that alone ought to 
consign any document to the waste basket, but to the de- 
fence of the god he discovered in a Texas flower and 
Plato's affirmation, "God Geometrises," in connection 
with the origin of evil. The question of evil is a sore one 
for all theists,but the assumptions of our author make the 
character of his god the most repulsive and detestable of 
all the creations of the human imagination. Let us recall 
some of his positions. "Causation alone resides in mind. 
Matter can never be a cause." Speaking of cause and 
effect he says: "The former (cause) is first, both in logic 
and chronology/' Well, if God is the First Cause, he is 
the only real cause, for all secondary causes, if there be 
any such, are only the effect of the first or primal cause. 
They are only streams from the original fountain, hence 
the stream is only the fountain in another form, and in 
essence is the same. The character of the fountain can 
be perfectly known by that of the stream flowing there- 
from. 

Therefore, the only induction possible is, thai Cod Is 
the actual and responsible author of all evil. The fearful 
storm which wrecked Galveston was qoI the resull of any 
combination and action of natural forces, "hut the effeei 
of intellectual force exerted by pure volution." The 
famines in India, winch sweep off millions by the horrid 
process of starvation, are all "effects of the intellectual 



110 AS TO THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 

force" of God "exerted by pure volition." Our author's 
God, in fact, any Creative God, is a wholesale murderer of 
the creatures he has made. He is the author of all forms 
of crime, and all the degradation and savagery on the 
earth. Nothing exists but what originated in him. 
Devils, murderers, thieves, etc., bear his image as really as 
the tallest archangel in the Hierarchy of the Heavens. 

THE PROBLEM OF EVIL. 

How does our author dispose of these sweeping deduc- 
tions from his own premises ? Why, he holds up his hands 
in holy horror at the "blasphemy" of the "unprincipled 
atheist," who dares to urge the legitimate deductions from 
his own premises. He then attempts to escape the crush- 
ing force of these inferences by the subterfuge that they 
rest only against the character, but not the existence of a 
Deity. "The problem of evil," he says, "is demonstrably 
insolvable without a direct revelation from heaven, and 
for the obvious reason that the existence of evil is a con- 
tingent, not a necessary truth." Aha! "A contingent?" 
that is an accidental truth! It simply happened that evil 
came into the world ! What an admission. And that too 
from the man posing as a logician, and as a mathematician 
calculating the impossibility of a chance combination of 
five petals in a great number of flowers, and then pro- 
claiming the existence of moral evil a chance — an acci- 
dent! Look in your Dictionary and study the meanings 
of the word "contingent," and apply them to this God, 
who is such a precise mathematician that he can't allow 
the slightest divergence from the exact number of five 
petals in the famous Texas flower, nor from the same 
number of atoms in each chemical combination, or fingers 
and toes on man; or eyes, ears, arms or legs, etc., etc. 
There is no contingency here — no chance happening. But 
when he came to the moral nature of man, where untold 
ages of agony, if not eternal torment in hell, was involved, 
by some sort of chance, or contingency, he allowed or de- 
creed — caused moral evil or sin in man. The tears of woe 
that evil has caused would float all the navies of the world. 
The groans and sighs of agony would, if concentrated, 
drown the cannonade of Gettysburg or the Wilderness. 
And this God caused it all "contingently." What a God! 

Another quibble is, that no one knows the reason why 
God caused moral evil. Not even a seraph can know or 
give the reason. It is sufficient answer to say that no 



AS TO THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. Ill 

seraphic insight is necessary, for plain common sense is 
equal to the emergency. The God who caused moral evil 
did so because it was part of his nature. Nothing can 
come from any being that is not in, and of, that being. 
Hence, the Christian God proclaims "I make good and 
create evil." 

Our author then indulges in suppositions. Perhaps 
God created evil, and the consequent suffering, to enhance 
our future happiness. If we need sin to make our future 
more glorius, so does God also. Perhaps it was to create 
an opportunity to display his great mercy. Yes, indeed! 
Such a mercy. He plunges us into the filth and hell of 
sin in order to get the credit of taking us out on certain 
conditions. It is a wonderful mercy to help a man out of 
the ditch into which you have pushed him. But all the 
suppositions are the turnings and twistings of a man com- 
pletely cornered by his own absurdities. 

CHARACTEE OF GOD. 

But now let us analyze more closely the assumption 
that our positions only touch the character of the assumed 
God, but not the fact of his existence. God and his char- 
acter are not two things. His character is the en semble 
of his nature. His attributes, or perfections, constitute 
his being. His character is himself. It is claimed that 
he is infinite in all the elements of his being; Omnipotent, 
Omniscient, Omnipresent, Immutable, Holy and Good. 
Infinite Goodness and Holiness could never cause evil arid 
suffering. Immutability would mean the same "yesterday, 
to-day and forever." The same principles would rule in 
all time and all worlds. He could neither do, nor permit 
the doing of wrong. 

But the whole trend of our author's argument reveals 
his God as allowing, causing and doing the wrong, he be- 
ing the causating energy and "intellectual force" produc- 
ing all things and motions in nature, and in perpetual 
conflict with himself. Evil existing in God must be 
eternal much more than with the atheist as he charges. 

But we advance one step farther with our argument, 
and submit that no being possessed of unity and perfec- 
tion of nature can possibly an I agonize itself. Light can- 
not become darkness. Cold eannol become heat, nor can 
truth become falsehood. Nothing can become its oppo- 
site. But the argument of .mm- author proves, if it proves 
anything, that the infinite God is in perpetual conflict 



112 AS TO THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 

with himself, as he is made the producing cause of all that 
is, and all that happens; that is, of all substance and all 
phenomena or motion. But, this is impossible, in the 
very nature of things. It contradicts, and therefore de- 
stroys itself. Hence, his labored essay falls to the ground, 
and proves nothing but the fact that the human intellect 
is subject to the wildest forms of self-delusion. 

THE CONCLUSION. 

In concluding this article, let us sum up the argument. 
In the first place, I showed that the assumption that all 
causation resided in mind, and that no causating energy 
inhered in matter, was not proved. Was not even at- 
tempted to be proved, but rested on another unproved 
assumption that matter was inert. This was shown to be 
incorrect, and that the prima facie evidence declared that 
causative energy pertained to matter, and that mind was 
limited and controlled by matter. But, even if we 
allowed exclusive causation to mind, it would not prove 
our author's position, because there were many minds, and 
their motions entirely independent of each other, and 
there was no evidence that the many minds as causating 
centers originated from one mind as the first cause. 
Hence, it must be proved that there had been a creation 
sometime. But this has not been done, hence there could 
be no such thing as a first cause. 

There can be no cause without an effect. 

Cause is not first any more than positive is first or be- 
fore negative. 

It showed also that in the great processes of evolution 
effects transcended their causes. We reckon the great- 
ness or importance of things by their functional capaci- 
ties. Hence, taking animal life, from the amoebae to 
man, and the vegetable from the primal moss to the 
grandest tree of the forest or orchard, and the most beau- 
tiful flowers of the garden, and we have constant ascen- 
sion from the less to the more perfect, or effects tran- 
scending their causes. Effects become causes. 

Every living organism develops a germ which is a cause 
of another similar organism. Thus there is a constant 
play back and forth of cause and effect. And, until posi- 
tive, historical creation is proved, we must allow the 
eternity of this process. 

I then showed ' that the positions assumed as to the 



AS TO THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. 113 

superiority of the mathematical mind were not true. That 
we find some of the most perfect forms of mathematical 
working by the instinctive powers of insects. And that 
some of the mathematical prodigies, like Zerah Colburn, 
were not distinguished by any mental superiority what- 
ever. Also that the definite proportions in chemistry 
were simply and only the manifestation of the inherent 
forms and forces of the atoms and molecules composing 
the formation. In fact, that the whole mathematical 
order of the Cosmos proved nothing whatever as to any 
supposed origin of the same, but merely demonstrates that 
the properties and energies of matter are such that its or- 
ganizations and motions must be just as they are. And 
the existence of mathematical order is a simple fact,. prov- 
ing nothing as to origin or end. And the fact that man 
can imitate some of nature's processes by using the sub- 
stance and energy now existent, is no proof that some 
other mind created that substance and force. Hence, un- 
less the absolute creation of substance and energy can be 
proved, all the phenomena of the Cosmos do not furnish 
one scintilla of evidence of the existence of a God. Hence, 
all the author's hysterical gushings over Plato's "God 
Geometrises," and the thousands of five-petaled Texas 
flowers are as destitute of logical demonstration as the in- 
sane claim of the hypnotized convert that he feels God in 
his soul. 

But the crowning failure of our author's pretentious 
effort is found in his attempted solution of moral evil. I 
have shown how that arrays the divine perfections against 
themselves, and as that is an impossibility in itself, and 
yet the existence of evil affirming such impossibility, the 
unescapable inference is that the Cosmos could not be the 
creation of a perfect God. Hence, it furnishes no evi- 
dence whatever of the existence of such a being. On the 
contrary, the existence of a world with moral evil rife, is 
demonstration that no such God has an actual existence; 
for, if he had, he would essentially change the order of 
nature's workings. 

As a last remark, I submit that the fact that this 
assumed demonstration is worthless, is evinced by the 
utter neglect of the same by all classes of thinkers. It 
fell dead from the press, while Paley's argument, though 
most defective, is still urged by nearly all theists. 

Summerland, Cal. J. S. LOVELAND. 



What Has Spiritualism Given to the World? 



An Address Delivered by Mrs Helen P. Russegue, at 
the Boston Spiritual Temple. 



I shall take for my theme this evening the question, 
"What in Science and Eeligion has Spiritualism Given to 
the World in Fifty-four Years?" 

It is well at times we turn our attention to the past to 
observe the milestones that have marked our progress; 
that we look more deeply into the truths that are being 
presented to us for our consideration, for our attention, 
for our uplifting; that we recognize the sources from 
which knowledge comes to us, the foundations upon 
which we have been building, as well as the dreams or 
prophecies, what is to come. 

Spiritualism has opened wide the doors whose en- 
trances have been closed to the human intellect. 

Dogmatic religion has locked the doors of the Temples 
of Thought, but the wall is broken, seeking light and 
truth to know just where to go and how to find it. 

It is a remarkable fact that until the intellect of man is 
appealed to, until thought is awakened, until intelligence 
is aroused, man stands with folded arms in a quiescent 
state, not asking whither am I going, or whence have I 
come. 

The world has been moving on; it has been growing 
more and more profound; it has become sweeter and more 
glorified, and now it is seeing more clearly than ever be- 
fore the handwriting upon the walls of time. The mys- 
teries of the world are opening now to the conscious intel- 
lect of man. 



WHAT SPIRITUALISM HAS GIVEN. 115 

Science told man long ago how rapidly rays of light 
might travel by regular vibrations in space; it has marked 
the progress of the emanations from one point to another; 
it has told yon that light travels from 286,000 miles to 
300,000 miles per second; but when the spiritual life of 
man is awakened, the same science which has marked the 
march of time, has also brought to humanity instrumen- 
talities by which you are recognizing the powers of the 
spirit. You are to-day beholding how much more rapidly 
thought is passing from place to place, overcoming time 
and space; that the spiritual transmission is more rapid, 
more direct, more definite, more earnest than the light 
that has traveled from the distant planet to this earthly 
sphere. The spirit of man is recognizing its relationship 
to the world of matter which encompasses it. 

Spiritualism has been one of the great factors in the 
growth of the human mind. It has brought man to a 
conception of the possibilities of his intellect; it has 
marked out what man can do — not only what he can do, 
but what he must do or accomplish to attain the height, 
or the boundary of the powers contained within him. 

The spiritual progress of the last fifty-four years has 
unveiled greater mysteries than have ever been known in 
any era of time. It is true that spirit communion, the 
knowledge of another world, a life beyond the grave, can- 
not be limited to the knowledge that has come to the 
world in fifty-four years, for did not Socrates say when 
asked what should be done with his body, "You may do 
what you please with my body, if you do not imagine that 
it is me." Pray, "do what you please with my body," but 
he did not desire that they should believe that it was the 
living Socrates, the thoughtful philosopher, the scientific, 
earnest man. 

The world is taking up these truths now. 

The pendulum of time has swung out into the universe, 
and it has swung back into the human thought until the 
fires of truth are being kindled upon the altars of intelli- 
gence, and man is awakening to the possibilities 
within him. 

Spiritualism has diffused itself through the great liv- 
ing mass of humanity. It has scattered its seed broadcast 
over the world. Its influence is felt in high places and in 
the lowly walks of life. It is recognized as as omnipresent 
power that is permeating human society and human asso- 
ciations. It is a power in your midst. It is working 



116 WHAT SPIRITUALISM HAS GIVEN. 

through every condition of human thought. It is dif- 
fusing itself into every phase of life, of principle, of 
growth, of that progress which belongs to the human 
thought. 

Spiritualism is but fifty-four years old now in its mod- 
ern manifestation, yet it is as old as time. It has left its 
footprints upon the mountains of the past. It has en- 
graved its lessons upon the tablets of time. It has left 
its impress everywhere, and man Las grasped its truths, 
and is carrying them forward to higher unf oldings. 

To-day Spiritualism, speaking of it as a religion, is 
broader, truer, sweeter, more divine than that which has 
been vouchsafed to man. It is a religion that is em- 
bodied in right doing, that is abolishing fear, that is doing 
away with error, that is taking out of the lives of the hu- 
man family the undeveloped conditions, and is awakening 
man to a necessity of improving all that he possesses; of 
cultivating every faculty; of uplifting the souls of the 
world to a conception of a higher need than they have 
known heretofore. It is the religion of doing; the re- 
ligion of growing, the religion of advancing, the religion 
of progress, the religion of the spirit. 

Spiritualism has builded a higher spirituality than has 
been recognized before. The spiritual relationship that 
exists between man and man, between soul and soul, is 
more clearly recognized than it has ever been before. 
How ? By the different phases of communication that are 
existing everywhere in your midst, not only in mental 
telegraphy, but in mental healing; not only in the two, 
but by the emanation from every human mind that is 
recognized in your midst. It is a fact that you are 
measuring the intellectual vibrations of the human spirit 
just as you are measuring the vibrations of the air; you are 
marking their regular and irregular passage through 
space; you are marking their transmission from one lo- 
cality to another, and all this is transcending all that has 
passed before your mind at any earlier date. 

Spiritualism is awakening humanity to a true concep- 
tion of what men are. To-day you are communicating, 
not what you profess, but what you are to each other. 
You are speaking a language which has been uttered for 
centuries, and to-day there is not a chain, a fetter or a 
bond that confines man, but what is feeling its influence. 
It is going out and out until it reaches the farthest 



WHAT SPIRITUALISM HAS GIVEN. 117 

bounds of life. Its influence is being marked, not only 
upon your fellow man, but upon all nature. It is carry- 
ing its power into homes and hearts that have heretofore 
been fettered by dogmatic faith. 

Spiritualism has come as a destroyer. It has been cut- 
ting down error. It has razed the old temple to the earth. 
It has undermined the old institutions. It has taken away 
from man the fear that has been imbedded in his heart, 
and he is now becoming emancipated. 

What is the result ? Many times, mistakes, errors, sins, 
it may be, are apparent, but there has never been an over- 
turning of any condition in life but what the imperfec- 
tions are brought to the surface. There has never' been a 
volcano that has belched forth its fire and lava that has 
not brought the interior of that mountain to the surface, 
and so it is with truth. You are the volcano, and in and 
through you is growing and burning the fire of wisdom, 
truth, spiritual progress; and the errors that are in your 
lives are coming to the surface, and you are throwing 
them off, and you are attaining to higher perfection. 

Spiritualism is accomplishing this as a religion. It is 
teaching man the love of right for right's sake. It is 
teaching him to do right, not because he is afraid of pun- 
ishment. There is a love for right doing, and a love for 
wisdom; there is a love for spiritual growth; there is a 
love for that which is true and beautiful. It is taking 
away from you the desire to worship. You bow your 
heads and prostrate yourselves in the dust before you, and 
why? Because you are afraid, afraid of the unfolding re- 
sults of your lives; but Spiritualism tells you that you are 
to stand erect, live earnest, honest lives; meet the conse- 
quences of your own doing; accept the results of your own 
acts; burn the dross within your lives in the fires of expe- 
rience, and wash your souls clean, pure and white, in the 
blood of truth. Let your souls be washed clean and 
white, because you are throwing off errors. 

Spiritualism is marking the difference between right 
and wrong more definitely than it has ever been marked 
before. It is outlining the possibilities of the human in- 
telligence, only so far as the human intelligence has de- 
veloped these possibilities. The moment you have at- 
tained to one height, you have only broughi yourself to 
the observance of one beyond, and one truth transcending 
every other truth is leading you up the hills of time. 



118 WHAT SPIRITUALISM HAS GIVEN. 

Progress, eternal progress, for the souls of men. This 
has been one of the fundamental principles taught by 
Spiritualism in its modern aspect. It has developed a 
power that has brought this matter to the thought of ev- 
ery individual in every community, of every family in the 
land. It has percolated every sect; it has penetrated ev- 
ery circle of society. It has attained to the highest places 
in the land; it has gone down to the lowest depths of hu- 
manity. It embraces one and all. It brings God closer 
to the human consciousness and makes divine life more 
closely allied to the lives of men. 

In science, Spiritualism sees its inauguration as a fact. 
It has unearthed many principles that underlie human 
action. It has not only taught us that we are allied to 
each other through our sympathies, but that we are allied 
to each other through our infirmities as well. 

We are transmitting to our fellow creatures the wrongs 
that we are entertaining, just as much as we are letting 
out the good that we treasure. 

We are giving to the world that which may not be seen, 
but which is most potent in its effects. 

You do not see the progress of the flower. You do not 
behold the vibrations from that flower. You do not 
know their regularity, nor recognize the parts of it. It is 
created. You do not know why one is white and the 
other red until you have analyzed every part and portion 
of that flower to know what its relations are to its envi- 
ronments; so it is with the human life. You do not know 
why the wrongs exist in life until you have analyzed the 
conditions to their depths. 

Spiritualism is accomplishing much for the world. It 
has unearthed the cell of the criminal. It is growing 
slowly into the houses of justice. It is inoculating its 
influence in every home everywhere, until we are learning- 
how much it has accomplished for man's good. We are 
learning something of the foundations of human societ} r , 
and in this, our Spiritualism becomes an active principle, 
a reality, a fixed fact in this wise, that there is a divine law 
inherent in every condition of life whose mandate cannot 
be ignored, and must be obeyed. We recognize this fact 
in the world of nature, but we are prone to ignore it in the 
human world. We are prone to strive to escape the pen- 
alty of the law. We are striving to avoid the justice that 
confronts us; we are attempting to remove from our 



WHAT SPIRITUALISM HAS GIVEN. 119 

midst the conditions we do not enjoy, and why? Because 
the education, the association, the environment of more 
than two thousand years has given to us a way of escape 
from all these things, but to-day we are learning to ac- 
cept what we earn; thus Spiritualism is becoming a prac- 
tical religion. 

Fifty-four years has taught the world that there is a fact 
in this one assertion, that if life is eternal, justice must 
crown that life. 

It is true that if there is life beyond the grave, it must 
be for something. 

It is not true we are to fold our arms and sing songs of 
praise until, with wearied hearts, we close our eyes to eter- 
nal sleep. Xo, it means activity, earnest endeavor^ love 
for our fellow men, a close and earnest watchfulness of 
the needs of all upon whom we can bestow goodness, help- 
fulness, light, truth, love, sympathy and strength, and 
leads us to a higher unfolding of our own lives. 

Spiritualism has taught us that the same law that ap- 
plies in Nature outside us in the world of matter, in the 
world that surrounds men, applies within the spiritual 
life. 

There is no such thing in life as inactivity; there is no 
such thing as inanimate life; there is no force in life that 
is quiescent. There is only a power that is marching on 
and on forever and forever. That power we are giving 
out in centrifugal force as much as the power that is cen- 
trifugal in the world of matter outside of the human 
mind, and the centripetal is the power that is coming in 
like a flood from on high into our lives, inspiring us to 
nobler deeds, to greater responsibilities, to more earnest 
endeavors, and to a sweeter relationship. 

Fifty-four years have taught us that God is justice. 
His law is eternally just. His power is eternally divine. 
His presence is omnipotent. His knowledge is the 
knowledge of all things. His life and truth is the spirit- 
ual force that belongs to the universe. This being true, 
we cannot withdraw from his realm; we must abide within 
it; we must act according to its mandates; we must obey 
its demands, and we must march according to its com- 
mands. 

Spiritualism has not only taughl is that man lives be- 
yond the grave, but that he retains every faculty, that ev- 
ery possibility of the mind is carried through t he doorway 



120 WHAT SPIRITUALISM HAS GIVEN. 

we call death; that he is carrying every thought, the same 
love, the same tenderness, the same errors that have be- 
longed to him here; until he shall have discarded them, 
thus progress has left its stamp upon him only so far as he 
may have awakened to the need of a greater and higher 
truth. 

Spiritualism has taught us that we are not only to com- 
mune with the spirits of men who have passed beyond the 
grave, but we are to commune spiritually with each other; 
Ave are to see and hear as we are seen and heard; we are to 
know as we are known. 

It is not the human ear that receives the vibrations of 
sound, that knows the measure of that sound. 

It is not the eye that recognizes the vibrations that are 
surrounding us from the planets beyond, but it is some- 
thing within that is measuring that distance. There is a 
power within that is telling us what these things imply, 
what they are to us, how we shall use them, how we shall 
apply them, how we shall appropriate them to our daily 
lives, and the result is that we have entered into a closer 
communion, a more earnest and sincere helpfulness to 
each other, and the world is better for it. 

Spiritualism is building for each man a heaven, and he 
is building for himself a hell. 

The fires which he kindles in the one instance are the 
purifiers through which the dross and ignorance and im- 
perfections are burned away. 

The heaven he is building is simply the recognition of a 
higher condition. Every one who is impatient to move 
on, aspires to greater heights, is reaching out farther and 
farther into the realm of spirituality, and the world has 
attained to that condition to-day, that it confronts us ev- 
erywhere, in our homes, in our business, in our religion, 
in all the associations pertaining to daily life that is call- 
ing for a greater, a higher need of a spiritual recognition 
of life. Spiritualists, what does this mean? What does 
this imply? 

Fifty-four years may have emancipated you from one 
degree of slavery; look to it that you do not enter into an- 
other. That has been a great fault discovered in many 
who have accepted the belief or the knowledge of the ex- 
istence of life beyond the grave, who do not try to extend 
that knowledge, to strengthen it, to build it up, to send 
out its radiance to the world, by which the world may be 



WHAT SPIRITUALISM HAS GIVEN. 121 

divinely illuminated, but it is doing its work. It is per- 
colating every church; it is speaking from every pulpit; it 
is going to the hearts of men; it is lifting man to loftier 
heights, and it is telling of a nobler future for the race. 
It belongs to the heart, it belongs to the experience; it be- 
longs to the world. 

Spiritualism has accomplished much in i^s half century 
of life. Its religion is universal; its science is practical; 
it is not only telling you that you are allied to each other, 
but it is telling you how you are allied to each other. It 
is telling you that you cannot sever the ties by which you 
are held in the great community of life. 

Spiritualism, where is it? It is here, it is everywhere; 
it is not only in the world of matter, in the grain of sand, 
in the blossom that is pure and beautiful, in the earth 
which has given to it its strength, in the warmth and 
sunshine that has gladdened its heart, but it has gone out 
into the world, and is telling its story everywhere. It is 
singing of the spirit of living. 

What does it mean? It means that you go down into 
the earth. You are measuring the spiritual nature of the 
planetary worlds; you are knowing the component parts 
of the universe, and the time is not far away when you 
will know that there is a tie so clear and so well traced 
that you may mark the relation that you hold to a heav- 
enly body. 

Spiritualism has accomplished so much in its half-cen- 
tury that to-day there is no religion known of man that 
does not know of its presence, that does not feel its 
warmth, that does not experience its power, that is not 
thrilled by its fires, that is not awakened by its progress, 
that is not uplifted by its influence, and is not purified and 
exalted by its divinity. All of this, Spiritualism has ac- 
complished in fifty-four years. Dogma's chains are 
broken; the cloud of the human soul is passing away; tem- 
ples are crumbling at the very foundations in which man's 
soul has been imprisoned, and the world is catching the 
gleam of an eternal emancipation from wrong, from sin 
and ignorance, and is catching the gleam of the heavenly 
truth. 



God Is a God of the Living, 

Not a God of the Dead. 



A Reply to Dr. Emil Hirsch, Jewish Rabbi, Chicago, 
by Cora L. V. Richmond. 



"God is not the God of the dead but of the living." "I 
will preach no more funeral sermons." 

This was the statement, or this remark, ascribed to 
Eabbi Hirsch, in a recent utterance, and he adds, "we can- 
not benefit the dead by funeral discourses. There is 
nothing in Judaism that teaches immortality." 

If this is true, i. e., if it is truly quoted, of course we 
cannot blame Rabbi Hirsch for not speaking at funerals. 
No man has any business to speak at funerals who does 
not believe in a future life. 

It is true also, a. fact which most of us deplore, that 
there is undue ostentation and external display at fu- 
nerals: the long retinue of mourners; the black drapings 
and trappings of woe. We believe there should be and 
will be a reform in this direction. 

In England the mourning is delegated to hired mourn- 
ers; the friends do not go to the funerals, the grave. That 
is rather better, but not quite so sincere. 

There are three reasons at the present time for ad- 
dresses, discourses, or remarks when people pass away 
from the earth: To the majority of human beings the 
event is one of great sorrow; a calamity to those left be- 
hind, and every one feels the loss. And it is the province 
of religion, of whatever name or nature, to minister at 
such an hour. Besides it is a suitable place to pay just 
tribute to the life and work of the one that has arisen. 



A REPLY TO DR. HIRSCH. 123 

Oftentimes people wait until the funeral, or until the per- 
son has gone before they express their appreciation. We 
would advise a little more appreciation every day, a little 
more recognition of each other. Do not be afraid of 
praising one another, do not be afraid of recognizing each 
others' gifts, it will not invalidate your good qualities be- 
cause you recognize those in others. Especially, if you 
love your friends you cannot love them too much. The 
time on earth is very short to love them. 

Of course, the right kind of religion teaches people that 
they never cease to love their friends on earth and in 
heaven. But a little manifestation of it here and now in 
daily life, in your daily walks would make life more pleas- 
ant. But after all, when the casket is there, or when the 
spirit is released from the body, it is a suitable time to 
sum up the value of that human life, of what that human 
life stood for, of the loving deeds and words. Of those 
who have taken a conspicuous or noted part in the affairs 
of nations it is a good time to make a landmark, a mile- 
stone, and tell what they have done for humanity. This 
is not the most essential, the second and more essential 
point is to comfort those who mourn. 

Xo religion is of any value that does not offer comfort 
at such an hour; and the great surprise of the world must 
be that throughout Christendom the funeral and the fu- 
neral service has been made an occasion of almost incon- 
solable sorrow. With all the hope and faith that people 
have in creed and dogma, when death comes it seems an 
occasion of sorrow. Did people believe, as we believe, 
that the spirit of Jesus rose triumphantly from the tomb 
as an illustration of what people will do who believe on 
him, then would there be any occasion for this sorrow? 
It is the severing of the human tie, the breaking of the 
daily and hourly communion and conversation; it is the 
great veil that lies between you and that realm. So when 
in the New or Old Testament, the minister or the teacher 
cannot find the word and the teaching whereby he can 
comfort the mourner, it seems as though his religion must 
be empty and void; if he lias no words thai will assuage 
this grief, that will, in a measure, enkindle hope, that will 
uplift and strengthen those who fed I'm- the time being 
that all the foundations of life have gone from under 
their feet; the house is empty; everything is changed, hu- 
man things are not the same. At such an hour people are 
more receptive to spiritual and religious teaching. 



124: A REPLY TO DR. HIRSCH. 

We have nothing to say, however, concerning the re- 
ligious teacher, so-called, who has no word of comfort at 
such a time. We are sorry for him. We do not know 
what business he has to preach, for in both the Old and 
New Testaments we find any number of passages and 
chapters that give the greatest hope and strength and en- 
couragement for such a time. 

We remember once the Rev. Minot J. Savage was called 
with your pastor to officiate at a funeral in Boston. He 
had not then pursued his psychic research investigations; 
he said to her: "I always feel at such a time as this my 
utter inability, my weakness to meet the occasion, because 
I have no knowledge of the future life, as you have." 

This was a great confession, a great admission. Rabbi 
Hirsch has made a similar one publicly. The Rev. Minot 
J. Savage did not stop with a portion of his creed, how- 
ever liberal in other directions, he simply said: If there 
is a way to know about these things, I intend to know 
them. He joined the Psychical Research Society and in- 
vestigated the claims of the manifestations of Modern 
Spiritualism. The Rev. Minot J. Savage is prepared now 
to speak at funerals, because he knows something about 
the other world. 

Does Rabbi Hirsch claim that all his knowledge of the 
ethical and philosophical relations of human life were 
derived from the Mosaic Scriptures? Does he claim that 
the Jewish religion has given him all the knowledge that 
he gives forth from his pulpit? If the Jewish religion 
does not teach about modern science, modern philosophy, 
modern art, does he never mention these from his pulpit? 
Many of his sermons are replete with the learning of mod- 
ern science; many of his sermons are full of modern art 
and modern philosophy. Did he get this from the Jewish 
religion? If he did not, has he not the same right to pur- 
sue an investigation concerning the future life beyond 
what Judaism taught? 

If it is possible for any minister of any denomination to 
know more about the future life, or any one outside of 
denominational lines, has not Rabbi Hirsch the right to 
know it? 

He has just as good right as Rabbi Weil, of Bradford, 
Pa., who came to Cassadaga to study the phenomena and 
the philosophy of Spiritualism. He listened to your pas- 
tor there several times. He went back to Bradford and 
told his congregation what he had seen and heard. Some 



A REPLY TO DR. HIRSCH. 125 

of the elders were about to ask him to resign, but the con- 
gregation said, if he resigned they would go too. The 
result was, that he could preach his thoughts to a certain 
limit. Bat then he did not propose to be bound by any 
limits, at all. He then wrote a book (The Religion of the 
Future) in which he said: Spiritualism is the religion of 
the future. 

This kind of knowledge is precisely what is needed. 
We have found a more liberal spirit, usually, among the 
Rabbis of the Hebraic Church than among the ministers 
of the Christian denominations; an interest in the sub- 
ject, a desire to know about it. Of course, Rabbi Hirsch 
knows that this subject is in the world. Why cannot he 
find out about the future life? 

Another singular thing is, that the quotation ascribed 
to him, is from the New Testament, not from the Old. 
The Old Testament tells us that God was the God of 
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But it was Jesus who made 
the application of: "God is not a God of the dead, but of 
the living;" and it was precisely upon the point that 
Rabbi Hirsch is professing ignorance upon: i. e., the fu- 
ture life. In the Gospel of Matthew it is called the 
"resurrection;" and Jesus was talking about the future 
life and saying that it is not that God is a God of the 
dead, but of the living; which meant that Abraham, Isaac 
and Jacob were alive instead of being dead. But no 
Hebrew puts this interpretation upon it. The Hebrew 
people never thought that the resurrection was in a 
spiritual sense. They believed that it was physical, that 
it related to the earth, that Jerusalem is to be literally re- 
stored to them. 

Does Rabbi Hirsch claim to be an orthodox Jew? Does 
he not take an added and more liberal view of all these 
subjects? Would it not be the right thing for him if he 
cannot minister to those who mourn, cannot con- 
scientiously give them any knowledge or thought concern- 
ing the? future life, to Btudy about it from those who 
know? [f lie does not want to investigate Spiritualism, 
lei him take Plato or any of the ancient philosophers. If 
he does not want to investigate phenomena, lei him take 
the poetry, philosophy and romance of every age. Every 
genius has given to the world thoughts concerning im- 
mortality. No philosophy ie bo barren as to be without 
it. No poetry is bo meager thai it has not some sug- 



126 A EEPLY TO DE. HIRSCH. 

gestions of the larger, immortal life. The highest themes 
that can engage human thought are those that relate to 
the nature of the soul and its immortal destiny. 

In modern times, in the world to-day, there is a method 
whereby he can know. Is he ashamed to try it. Did not 
the Eev. Minot J. Savage try it? Did not the Rev. 
Heber N ewton try it ? Have not a score of Christian min- 
isters tried it ? These now stand in their pulpits teaching 
the certainty of a future life, gained by such investiga-' 
lions. What men of science, like Dr. Alfred Russell Wal- 
lace and Sir William Crookes, of England, are not 
ashamed to investigate, what clergymen, like those we 
have named are not afraid to investigate, the Eev. Eabbi 
Hirsch should not be afraid to investigate if the great pall 
of mourning can be lifted from the world. The moment 
you make people know that their friends are not dead, 
but living; that they are not far away but near; that they 
are not waiting and sleeping until the day of the resurrec- 
tion of the body, but here and now is the resurrection and 
the new life. "For God is a God of the living/' Mean- 
ing: that whatever becomes of bodies, souls are alive, 
spirits are alive. 

When Moses and Elias appeared upon the Mount of 
Transfiguration it was a direct rebuke to the thought that 
all sleep until their bodies are resurrected. 

Let us consider that this life, of which Eabbi Hirsch 
says he is ignorant, is continually impinging upon human 
existence, and has given the best inspirations to the 
Eabbis of the Hebrew Church, has awakened the songs of 
prophets, the psalms of David, has visited Isaiah and filled 
the ancient books of record in the Old Testament. Let 
us consider that if we take away the ministrations of 
angels and spirits from the Bible we take away the only 
part of it that makes it valuable. That in the one hun- 
dred or more instances in which the "Angel of the Lord" 
appears to different prophets he appears in the guise of 
the arisen human spirit. These angels did not claim to 
be a separate order of beings. They spoke with the 
tongue and knowledge of the men whom they visited, and 
they walked on earth as men in those days. And that you 
may know that they are those that have lived on earth, 
the prophets declared that they could appear again. 

This question of immortality is the vital question of 
life, The agnostic, the materialist, the Second Adventist 



A REPLY TO DR. HIRSCH. 127 

and Jews teach that whatever relates to this life is the 
most important. That if you obey the Hebraic or other 
laws of the church; that if you follow the Commandments 
and attend to the affairs of human life you may or may 
not be resurrected. 

But if it shall be borne in upon, or if it shall be awak- 
ened from, the consciousness of Rabbi Hirsch that this 
proposition of immortality is innate; that it relates to all 
souls; that all people have a right to know about it; that 
the time they most need it (the hour of sorrow) is the time 
they have a right to know about it, and if he cannot say 
from his own knowledge, he can read from the Jewish 
passages of the Scriptures, he can read from the standard 
poets, from the philosophies of Plato and Socrates and 
their modern successors, from the intuition and learning 
that the world has given, he can cross over to India and 
Arabia and seek this knowledge of immortality there, he 
can bring it from India and show that the life that 
Buddha taught is eternal, he can take it from the book of 
nature; that which shows that every form of life is from 
the source or spirit of life forever, or he can by visitations 
and investigations in the right direction receive the direct 
testimony, the knowledge that appeals to the human 
understanding, of the visitations of the spirits of the 
"departed," as they are called, unto human beings; he ca"n 
show that this veil has been removed, he can say, as sev- 
eral ministers have said to the mourners when called upon 
to officiate with us at funerals: "The spirit of your de- 
parted friend is with you now, is here in your midst and is 
as much a part of your life as before." 

Nothing prevents any human being from knowing this, 
excepting intellectual or spiritual bigotry. The agnostics 
and materialists and some classes of people are intellectual 
bigots; there are many religious bigots. Those who are 
too bigoted to seek knowledge of the immortal life, of 
course, are not in a condition to be comforted, strength- 
ened and encouraged by that knowledge. 

But see how changed the accompaniments of funeral- 
are: upon the door of the house of the departed one, in- 
stead of hangings of crape yon see garlands of flowers; the 
casket is no longer covered with somber drapery, but 
blossoms, testimony of loving friend-, (ill the room and 
cover the casketj as it' to rebuke ai thai hour any undue 
grief ami to point to tin- immortal life, words of comfort 



128 A EEPLY TO DE. HIESCH. 

borne from the great influx of spirit life in the 19th and 
20th centuries is poured out at such a time. 

Many a minister has been glad that Spiritualism is in 
the world! Not because he claims to believe in it, but be- 
cause he can take that which it teaches to comfort the 
mourners, to give them an assurance of a future life, to 
wipe the tears away from the eyes of the suffering, to 
make a different basis of life for those who remain. 

Friends, it is a startling thing when a man can say in 
the midst of any religious congregation, "I have nothing 
to offer concerning immortality." It is a startling thing 
even coming from outside the church among the material- 
ists and agnostics. Yet we do not believe that there is 
actually a materialist in the world, that is, one who totally 
rejects the thought of a future existence. We have often 
referred to the testimony of the great agnostic, Eobert 
Ingersoll, when he stood beside the casket that contained 
the body of his brother, and with the loving tribute and 
eloquent remarks, he said: "We hope to meet again." 

Does not Judaism contain as much hope as materialism 
and agnosticism? If it does not people would be better 
to leave it. That which has the most hope for the world 
is the best to cling to; that which contains the most 
knowledge is the best to attain. And we assure you, be- 
loved friends, that this great "cloud of witnesses" that 
encompass you around about, and this constant perception 
by intuition and impression of invisible presences are ac- 
companied also by the added testimony of distinct mes- 
sages, and that hundreds of people, sensitive and active in 
this realm are giving those messages. That it is as much 
a legitimate method of communion as sending a message 
across the Atlantic by cable, or to New York by telephone 
or telegraph. When this method of communion is once 
open to you the great void is filied, the great pang is for- 
gotten, the House of Life is open to you, it has larger and 
more open chambers, you have entered into the knowl- 
edge that this earth life is but the basement or first story 
of this human spiritual habitation. These other 
"mansions" or other rooms in the great dwelling place of 
life are never seen by human vision, because of the lack of 
perception. There are millions of living things on the 
earth that you cannot see, they are too small, and there 
are millions of things which are too large for you to sec 
in the realm of nature, but you know they are there. So 



A REPLY TO DR. HIRSCH. 129 

this added knowledge of the other realm, this inter-com- 
munion that is possible, this great strengthening life is 
within. 

Rabbi Hirsch should take lessons from the great mas- 
ters of human thought, not one of whom has been a ma- 
terialist, not one of whom has doubted a future life, and 
all of whom in their philosophy and in their teachings 
hare given the fundamental principles upon which man's 
immortality is based, and have pointed to the intuitions, 
strengthened by inspiration and revelation, to show that 
the future life is a reality. 

Of what avail is this transient human existence? Of 
what avail the upbuilding of structures and the gathering 
together of earthly treasures? Of what avail the affec- 
tions if they are to be buried and blotted out in death? 

The star-eyed Prophetess of Inspiration, the calm- 
browed Goddess of Immortality over and within human 
souls make manifest unto human lives, according to their 
needs, that future existence. 

If Rabbi Hirsch studied at this shrine, or was a 
worshiper of the religion that includes immortality, he 
would find abundant evidence without, and absolute evi- 
dence from within. 



Why Is Christianity Declining? 

A Clear and Concise Explanation of the Crumbling 

of the Creeds and the Growing of Liberalism, by 

an Eminent Divine Who Signs 'A Nazarine,' 

In the Sunday Press of June 29, Eev. G. Campbell Mor- 
gan contributed an article under the caption "Is Religion 
Declining/' in which he rightfully concludes: "It seems 
to be incontrovertible that there has been for many years 
a religious declension in the United States. This declen- 
sion has covered both faith and practice." This retro- 
gression is attributed "very largely" to "indifferentism 
and the wandering of the heart from God, to the unexam- 
pled activity of the mind in other directions, such as in- 
ventions, financial, manufactures and commerce. The 
world has been for years science-crazy and money-crazy, 
and religion in any form has been temporarily crowded 
out of its mind." He further, and rather paradoxically, 
observes that "the very universality of this movement is 
not specially a rational rejection of Christianity." If this 
is meant to apply to the religious system founded by Jesus 
Christ and what little of it has been permitted to trickle 
down through the ages in spite of theology and religious 
bigotry, it is correct. But the Christianity of the schools, 
as it is known and applied, has declined and is being re- 
jected for the very rational reason that it has been 
weighed in the balance and found wanting. It is the pro- 
duct of human agencies and inventions — the Dead Hand 
of the Past trying to fasten the inane creeds created by the 
disintegrated brains of the Church Fathers, upon the 
present generation and hold it among the crude environ- 
ments of the dawn of history. 

The writer has no quarrel with genuine Christianity. 
We believe when rid of redundances, cleared of contempo- 



IS CHRISTIAN RELIGION DECLINING? 131 

rary errors, properly understood and applied, it is the hope 
of the world. We also believe that there are to-day mil- 
lions of good men and women wearing the breast-plate of 
righteousness, whose lives are an inspiration in making 
the world better — in spite of theology. But to the vast 
majority of people the religious system known as Chris- 
tianity presents so many contradictions and inconsisten- 
cies that it is a hopeless enigma. Yet the Savior's plan 
was so plain that u a wayfaring man need not err therein." 
It does not seem to occur to most religious enthusiasts 
that there may be something radically wrong with the 
present religious system causing this "mere indifferent- 
ism" and rejection of Christianity, which to them is the 
same as repudiating the creeds, dogmas and theological 
vagaries of the church. There are persons who would 
reject Christianity or any other religion for reasons as- 
signed by Mr. Morgan, but it is not admitted that three- 
fourths of the people of the United States are actuated by 
such motives in their indifferentism and rejection of so- 
called Christianity. In the repudiation ranks are millions 
of the best, noblest and most intelligent men and women 
that ever lived. It will not do to say that all this vast 
army of dissenters is simply selfish, dishonest and indiffer- 
ent. There are causes for this declension of theological 
Christianity traceable to entirely different sources, we 
think, than those assigned by Mr. Morgan. To ascertain 
these is the object of this inquiry. 

TRUE CHRISTIANITY. 

Let us first, then, try to get a conception of the fun- 
damental principles of the system under consideration. 
The Christianity of the Christ favors no school of 
thought; it connects itself with no ecclesiasticism; it is 
joined to no, philosophy; it depends for its advancement 
upon the facility of no creed. It welcomes with out- 
stretched arm«, to the companionship of its endeavors, its 
hopes and its fruition, those who would live rightly. The 
whole scope and object of it is to show us how to become 
better men and women, nobler husbands, truer wives, hap- 
pier children, more loving parents, warmer friends. To 
reach this goal its heroic spirits have mel freely and fear- 
lessly, pain and death in the cause of human rights. On 
the other hand, theological I Ihristianity is the creation of 
man. It is nothing more than a vasl system of intellec- 



132 IS CHRISTIAN RELIGION DECLINING? 

tualism masquerading in the garb of genuine Christianity 
on which it was grafted at the time of the latter's incep- 
tion giving rise to the Christianity of the schools. It is 
a huge attempt of the human mind, through eighteen cen- 
turies, to make man understand God and his relation to 
him. It negatives Christianity, hence, the churches have 
always been more theologic than religious. Its mission 
was not to bring "peace on earth and good will to men," 
but for selfish purposes, to conquer and hold in subjec- 
tion, by submissive ignorance, if it could, by fire and the 
sword if it must. Instead of being a personification of 
life, love, fraternity and service, it has been the consistent 
enemy of the human race. The answer to its mission is 
written by bleaching bones on countless battle-fields; the 
decimation of nations; autos-da-fe; rack and dungeon; 
and on the lurid sky reflecting the flames of a million 
fagot-piles where strong men and women writhed in 
agony. It has been a failure and will ever be. These are 
serious charges. Are they true ? 

"By their fruits ye shall know them/' Let us see, then, 
what the religion of man-made creeds and ecclesiastical 
dogmas have done in the evangelization of the world. 
During the middle ages all the philosophy and science of 
the civilized as well as its arts and music, were subservient 
to the church, and dared to think and work only within 
the limits of its dogmas. It owned the thrones of kings 
and emperors, the spade and plow of the squalid peasant- 
ry, and almost the fee simple of the soil. The people 
were not governed by intelligence but by threats and 
promises, rewards and punishments. The world was cov- 
ered with huts and hovels for the many, palaces and 
cathedrals for the few. To nearly all the children of men 
reading and writing were unknown arts. The poor were 
clad in rags and skins — they devoured crusts and gnawed 
bones. Their destiny was to toil and obey — to work and 
want, The poor peasant divided his earnings with the 
state, because he imagined it protected his body. He 
divided his crust with the church because he imagined it 
protected his soul. He was the prey of throne and altar. 
He was taught to hate the people of other nations and de- 
spise the believers in all other religions. The voices of 
progress were hushed in the silence of dungeons and sep- 
ulchers. The despotism of theology had done its work. 
But at last the day of science dawned and earth's be- 



IS CHRISTIAN RELIGION DECLINING? 133 

nigJited millions awoke to front the dawn of a better day 
and take up the long and weary march out of fens and 
bog-lands of ignorance, bondage and superstition. The 
luxury of a century ago are the necessities of to-day. But 
above all, and over all, is the development of the mind. 
These gifts are not the gifts of speculative Christian the- 
ology. They are the children of freedom, the gifts of 
reason, observation and experience. Theology, as of old, 
still denounces the crazy world of science and free 
thought. But the spread of intelligence and education 
have so modified theology as to deprive it of its old time 
harm, but it has not ceased its struggle for supremacy. It 
si ill delights to persecute for heresy (?) so far as it can, 
those who openly oppose its dogmas. It's the same old 
feud — the past struggling with the future, departing 
night battling with the dawn. 

THE MARCH OF SCIENCE. 

While science and unfettered thought have moved us a 
long ways up from the quaking boglands of intellectual 
night, we are yet standing in the retreating shadows and 
blighting influences of the dark ages. But the trend is 
upward. The magic key of science has unlocked the por- 
tals of progress. What was once myth, miracle and 
prodigy, have faded before the light of science which re- 
veals fixed laws and a stated order of nature. The clouds 
which hung over the creation have scattered. The heav- 
ens, the earth, the plants and the human frame, now that 
they are explored by science, speak of God as they never 
did before. The mysteries of the physical world are 
cleared up. The invention of the printing press, gun- 
powder, telegraph and railway have made it possible to 
explore the whole world. To-day all lands are visited, all 
languages are studied, all Scriptures are read. The ruins 
and relics of antiquity have surrendered their secrets. 
And, beyond our little planet, the universe has been re- 
duced to older and many of its mighty laws comprehend- 
ed. Discoveries in astronomy, geology, biology, archae- 
ology, etc., have completely demolished many of the old- 
time beliefs of our fathers, the traditions of ages, the 
oracles which From early infancy they Learned to revere 
and hold iiiii-i sacred, and regard as divine truth. Sci- 
entific historical and literary criticism have thrown over- 
board maiiv of the monstrous accumulations of human 



134 IS CHKISTIAN KELIGION DECLINING? 

guesses and judgments, opinions and influences, interpre- 
tations and conclusions, which by the ignorant and 
learned alike have been heaped upon the life of Jesus of 
Nazareth. . The critical spirit of our age, the inquiring 
condition of human thought, is distinctly a mark of hu- 
man growth and stands in bold antithesis to the dark ages 
of mental stagnation when speculation and progress were 
outlawed in many fields of research and spiritually suf- 
fered an eclipse behind the form, pomp and show of 
theology. 

Let us bring the matter nearer home. Look at the 
moral condition of the world to-day — the civilized world, 
and recall that it is nearly 2,000 years since Jesus lived. 
He came to bring peace into the world, and the world is 
filled with war. Look at the so-called Christian nations. 
Their boundaries bristle with bayonets as well-trimmed 
hedges with thorns. He came to introduce the era of for- 
giveness. What nation or race has learned the lesson? 
He came to redeem society from selfishness. But when 
was society ever more selfish than now? Men, under the 
reign of his ideas, were to love God with all their hearts, 
and their neighbors as themselves. "Where will you find 
a community thus inspired? His followers were to be 
lowly-minded and humble. Look at their robes, their 
mitres, their crowns, their signet rings, their titles of 
honor and their thirst for these. The old earth is earthly 
still; the human race is human still. The perfection of 
heaven is still confined to heaven. The divinity of the 
skies still keeps its throne above the stars. The perfect- 
ness of God is not in man, nor his royalty enthroned at 
the head of nations. Two thousand years have passed 
and Christianity has not triumphed. Why? Dr. Eobin- 
son has said: "The God of the mere theologian is scarcely 
a living God. He did live; but for some 1800 years we 
are credibly informed that no trace of his life has been 
seen. The canon is closed. The proofs that he was are 
in the things that he has made, and the books of men to 
whom he spake, but he inspires and works wonders no 
more. According to the theologians he gives proof of de- 
sign instead of God, doctrines instead of the life indeed." 
Terser, truer words, were never uttered. Abbv M. Diaz, 
writing on "Hindrances to World Betterment," in July 
Mind, says: "If we could only Christianize the Christians 
and make respectability respectable we would soon be 
done building jails for our common offenders." Here we 



IS CHRISTIAN RELIGION DECLINING? 135 

have two observations which contain in a nutshell much 
food for reflection for those who are solving the problems 
of indifferentism and turning away from theological 
churchianity. 

THE CHURCH AND REFORMS. 

Let us briefly inquire into the attitude of the church 
towards recent reforms. Take the anti-slavery cause. 
The Stars and Stripes were iking to the breeze from a 
staff fixed in the firm basis of equality, liberty and justice, 
yet we had within our borders in 18G0 four million chat- 
tel slaves! Just think of a system of government in a 
professedly Christian country that dehumanized man into 
personal chattels. A system that herded negroes together 
as swine-herd; changed marriage into prostitution, and 
made every plantation a brothel. A system that stripped 
a rational, moral human being, created in God's own 
image, of the fundamental right to inquire into, consult 
and seek his own happiness, and degraded him mentally, 
morally and physically beneath the brute. Of course the 
pulpit of the day denounced this monstrous system, did it 
not? No; with few honorable exceptions, the recreant 
clergy clinging to dogmas, afraid of investigation, preach- 
ing half truths, presenting a narrow Gospel, unwilling 
humbly to confess error, uttering cant, bowing the knee 
to Baal, and with creeds of iron, looked unmoved and ap- 
provingly on the physical, mental, moral and spiritual 
degradation of four million human beings because burned 
by a fiercer sun. To heighten the irony of the situation, 
the preacher read out of the church hymnal and with the 
congregation sang the national anthem, "My Country, 
'Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty, etc/' And in the 
next breath defended, through thick and thin, the buying 
and selling of women and babes and filled the mouths of 
slave-traders with passages of Scripture defending and 
upholding traffic in human flesh. At the same time the 
church branded the Abolitionists as fanatics, meddling 
with what did not concern them, and anathematized them 
as infidels assaulting the order of providence. Yes, 
slavery was a divine institution. Under the direction of 
a theoretical providence, supported by the pulpit, and 
protected by infamous laws, Hie lash, blood-hound and 
shotgun, ii was secure — till wiped out by bloody war. It 
only remained for the clergy to remind the slave's more 



/ 



136 IS CHRISTIAN RELIGION DECLINING? 

fortunate brother of his "indifferentism and turning of 
the heart from God/' and to threaten him with hell fire, 
brimstone and everlasting punishment in the world to 
come, if he refused to accept his monstrous theology. 
For clinging to theological dogmas of the dark ages, the 
Christianity of the United States was 3,000 years behind 
the Judaism of Moses, which denounced man-stealing. It 
is shameful, but it is a fact, that only yesterday in the 
great republic the Declaration of Independence was 
treason and the Golden Rule was heresy. We have the 
same thing to-day. 

Take the effort to broaden the sphere of women. Only 
fifty years ago in the land of Jefferson woman was shut up 
in Eastern seclusion. If she belonged to the wealthy 
class, she was imprisoned in a gilded cage, like a pet 
canary. She was a piece of animated bric-a-brac. She 
had privileges but no rights. She was given compliments 
instead of justice. If she belonged to the poorer class, 
she was the drudge of the household. Whether rich or 
poor, she was guilty of her sex. As wife, she was merged 
in her husband. As mother, she had no claim upon her 
offspring. As daughter, she was dwarfed by her brother. 
As woman, she was ranked with "children and idiots." 
Her sex excluded her from every bread-winning avocation 
save the needle and teaching. As all female bread- 
winners were crowded into these two callings there was 
not work enough for all and the only alternative, too 
often, was to choose between starvation and a life of 
shame. All this has been changed, but not by the theo- 
logical churchianity. The era of women has dawned, 
bearing the unmistakable prophecy of a higher civiliza- 
tion than humanity has ever known. Woman's sphere 
has been broadened to include everything God made her 
able to do — is about co-extensive with man's. She is to- 
day foremost in the great philanthropic, humanitarian, 
social and ethical reforms, in which selfishness has no 
place. In her widening influence, growing liberality, and 
freedom, we see imperiled a prophecy of an altruistic 
era — a civilization triumphant — rising against to- 
morrow's purple dawn. Meanwhile the old-time theology 
lias been the opposer of every single forward step. It has 
flung Paul in the face of women precisely as it threw 
Onesimus in the face of the slave. 



IS CHRISTIAN RELIGION DECLINING? 137 

LABOR AND THE CHURCH. 

Take the labor movement — the movement of the 
masses against the classes — the movement of the toilers to 
rescue from the clutches of work and wealth, shorter 
hours and a share in the profits. This movement the 
world over is the latest and greatest of miracles. From 
Russia to the United States labor is marshalling its forees 
to-day for the purpose of controlling to-morrow. Every- 
where we see the tyranny of capital driving the toilers 
nearer the great ocean of want. In every great city richly 
jewelled with magnificent temples dedicated to deity, we 
find thousands of homeless people crying for bread and 
work. We see under the very shadow of the temples a 
poverty as appalling, as hopeless, as degrading as exists in 
any civilized country on earth. It has come to pass that 
those who produce food are hungry; those who build pal- 
aces are homeless; those who make clothing are naked. 
In this ceaseless struggle for existence, capital is more 
sacred than human rights; life less sacred than property. 
In despair these wretched men are crossing the Rubicon. 
Already there are occasional riots and bloodshed — fever- 
ish invitations to bloody revolution. The church takes 
no interest in these matters. It stands alienated from the 
wage-earner. It is unacquainted with his struggles, trials 
and degradation. It takes no interest in these things: 
knows nothing of the injustice and bitterness of the toil- 
er's lot. But, says one, the church has no concern with 
social and industrial questions; its concern is spiritual! 
What, then, in the name of common sense, is the church 
for? What conceivable mission has it in the world, if it 
should not advocate the suppression of national wrongs 
which stand directly athwart its path to success in the 
work of evangelization? Christ's mission was "to seek 
and to save those who were lost, to preach the Gospel to 
the poor, to heal the broken hearted, to preach liberty to 
the captives, and opening the prison to them that are 
bound, and to comfort all that mourn." The church of 
the present day is not popular in sympathies, tendencies 
and methods. It gravitates away from the masses toward 
wealth, c-nltnre and clothes. The Gospel of Jesus Christ, 
like the Declaration of Independence, is antiquated and 
obsolete. Divine love is ai a discount when ii comes to 
aid the friendless, the foroaken, the despondent, the lost. 
The preacher- arc too busy bombarding the Pharisees of 



138 IS CHRISTIAN RELIGION DECLINING? 

old to train their guns on the Pharisees of the twentieth 
century. They ascribe all the woes of mankind to the 
machinations of the devil and the mysterious plans of an 
inscrutable Providence. They only say: "Bless us! what 
a noise those fellows in their shirt sleeves are making out 
there. Let us sing the Doxology !" If the minister is re- 
minded that his attitude is foreign to the mission of 
Jesus; that the Almighty himself instituted the first great 
labor movement on the banks of the Red Sea; that the 
burning bush should still be the church's inspiration to 
wage war against oppression and Egyptian bondage, he 
whispers: "Sh! Capital rents the pews, pays for the 
music and patronizes the parson. We will open a mission 
chapel on a side street and name it St. Lazarus." This 
done, he continues to magnify the importance of form, 
rite and ritual, while industry begs in vain for justice, em- 
ployment and living wages. Dr. Channing says: "It is 
time that our lips should be closed if we can do nothing 
towards breathing into men the peculiar benevolence of 
the Gospel — a benevolence which feels for, and seeks to 
elevate and save, the human soul. It is time, too, that as 
a class of Christians we should disappear, if we will not 
take our part in the great work of regenerating society. 
It is the order of Nature, that the dead should be buried 
and the sooner a dead, lifeless, soulless sect is buried and 
forgotten the better." To-day the unchurched millions 
charged with "indifferentism," etc., are the glad attend- 
ants at the funeral. Meanwhile, the church is as ignorant 
of the impending cataclysm, and its own fate, as Ver- 
sailles was of the French revolution a year before it red- 
dened the streets of Paris with blood. 

THE CHURCH AND THE PEOPLE. 

Why add more? Will not this suffice to show the atti- 
tude of theological Christianity past and present? 
Viewed as a whole, is it any wonder there is drifting apart 
of the church and the people? The church has largely 
lost touch with the world. It is more institutional than 
personal. It builds cathedrals, not men. It has the 
sword of the spirit, but it is glued in the scabbard. It 
meets on Sunday for worship in splendid exclusion and 
seclusion and shuts the building through the week, while 
the congregation is occupied at the theatre, in the ball- 
room or on Wall street. The pulpit, warned off from 



IS CHRISTIAN RELIGION DECLINING? 139 

living issues, drones through a parrot-like repetition of 
the creed — and the more sounding the ritual the less fer- 
vent the piety — and puts the emphasis on belief when it 
should be on conduct. Then, too, the church is pre- 
empted (and emptied) by wealth and fashion. Lawyers 
who are counsel for trusts and monopolies; capitalists 
whose names are associated with tricky monetary trans- 
astions; leaders of the ton whose real god is society; men 
and women prominent at church, in its officership, among 
its society leaders, who are at a discount as to honesty and 
reliability in the world, occupy the highest seat in the 
synagogue, and love to come because they feel sure that 
they will not be reminded of time in the contemplation of 
eternity. Meanwhile the industrial classes are conspic- 
uous by their absence. There is an almost complete 
alienation from institutional religion on their part, those 
who were foremost in planting Christianity — in the 
apostleship, among its most devoted adherents, its chief- 
est beneficiaries, its saintliest exponents, its most eager 
martyrs — are now embittered and critical. They do not, 
they cannot, recognize Christianity and theological 
churchianity. They need religion as much as ever. The 
gracious words and beautiful example of Christ would be 
as potent to them in the twentieth century as they were in 
the first, were they as faithfully and lovingly presented. 
But the church of show, the church of the holy cash, the 
congregation of cast, the congregation of St. Sinner, 
a-la-mode, are an abomination to their souls. There is 
still another class of broad-minded, liberal thinkers who 
believe it is in vain that dogmatic stupidity, moral indo- 
lence and official hypocrisy try to confine the human and 
universal religion of t lie kingdom of God within the terms 
of the religion of theology, pietism, ecclesiasticism, and 
the interests which monopoly have vested in religion. 

Yes, institutional religion is on the decline. The rev- 
erence for obsolete man-made creeds, ecclesiastical dog- 
mas, and theological vagaries, is on the decline. The 
older growths of earlier Biblical interpretation have 
dropped, withered and are perishing. Men will not read 
forever in the worn paths of their ancestors. They will 
not become the satellites of men who are in their tombs. 
Theological Christianity would leave us among the crude 
environments of ancient history — in our swaddling 
clothes. To-day there are millions of minds reposing in 



140 IS CHRISTIAN RELIGION DECLINING? 

the stagnant peace of an inflexible dogma — a faith cut, 
dried and infallible. But most people are beginning to 
believe man was created to a higher destiny. Orthodoxy 
is slavish adherence to that which has been. It must now 
be defined as old, regular, dull, unprogressive. The 
reason is plain. The people are intelligent. They are 
losing confidence in the miracles and marvels of the dark 
ages. They know the value of education and free thought. 
They appreciate the benefits of science — the outspoken 
enemy of ignorance and superstition. They are not in- 
terested in a religion that has nothing to offer them but 
magnificent ceremonies, show and sham. They are tired 
of a religion that does not touch the conduct and duties 
of daily life; that does not stand for justice and universal 
liberty. And the church never will fill its pews by lazily 
opening its doors once a week, clanging the bell in a ding- 
dong fashion, and saying: "You people out there come in 
here and be saved." If sinners ran their business like 
saints run the church, they would go into bankruptcy in a 
year. Imagine Paul standing in a gorgeous pulpit, with 
a $10,000 salary, and a $5,000 choir, in a church where 
pew rent is as high as house rent, with two or three seats 
down by the door for the use of the poor, and attributing 
the absence of the people to total depravity, to "mere in- 
difference and wandering of the heart from God; to the 
unexampled activity of the mind in other directions," or a 
"science-crazy" world. A NAZARINE. 



Spiritualism and Christianity. 

The Phenomena and Philosophy of Spiritualism as 

Compared With Those of Jesus Christ. — Given 

Through Cora L. V. Richmond. 



In the first sentence we must premise by saying that 
Spiritualism is only the modern name for manifestations 
of the spirit that have occurred in every age, whether 
under the form of Christianity, or in the old Mosaic days 
in the manifestations of prophets, soothsayers, dreams and 
the interpreters of dreams of that time. Going back still 
further, the manifestations that have occurred in India, in 
Persia, in China, under the various ministrations of those 
who have had the gifts of the spirit. 

Paul distinctly enumerates the gifts of the spirit, or 
"spiritual gifts" in his epistle to the Corinthians, and it is 
perfectly easy for you to understand, by his definitions, 
those gifts, and that they did not exist alone in those days, 
for those that are possessed to-day resemble them in every 
way. even the names that are given to spiritual gifts. 

Jesus of Nazareth taught from the spirit. It was not 
his work, but the work of the Father. Nevertheless, 
angels came and ministered unto him. His teaching was 
that of the law of loving-kindness; the manifestations 
were the gifts of tin 1 spirit. There was the gift of proph- 
ecy, the gill of tongues and the gift of the interpretat ion 
of tongues, the gift of healing, the gift of the working of 
miracles (or wonders), such as are wrought by your me- 
diums for physical phenomena, and all the different gifts 
enumerated as Paul has classified them. These gifts were 
-.-id and encouraged by the teacher of Nazareth. 
These were shown to be a part of his work and a part of 
the work of his disciples: foT wherever they urn l they 
practiced such gifts as they possessed, their followers 



U2 SPIRITUALISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 

practiced spiritual gifts in the early Christian Church. 
Even the Romish Church has kept alive the gifts of the 
spirit. The saints referred to in the calendar of the 
Romish Church, referred to in the early church in 
Jerusalem, referred to in the apostles and disciples of 
Christianity, these were accompanied by gifts of the spirit. 

It is only in the latter days of the church that these 
gifts have been denied. For it must be known that 
George Whitfield, that John Wesley and all the Wesley 
family, that those who have departed from the Church of 
England in the various denominations had these spiritual 
gifts and exercised them without considering that it was 
evil. Even Watts, the poet, speaks of those "ministering 
spirits" and "angels" that not only attend the dying saints 
but that keep watch around you every day. In other 
words, if you will read the New Testament carefully you 
will find that ministering spirits and angels bore an active 
part in the familv of the truest Christians, and that with- 
out these spiritual gifts the introduction of Christianity 
could not have occurred, since teaching alone would not 
have satisfied those who were seeking for a "sign" and a 
"token." Therefore when Paul said, "are they not all 
ministering spirits," it meant those who have passed 
from earth, who minister to those who are "heirs to 
salvation." 

In our view the teachings of Christ and the early Chris- 
tians (and you must pardon us) differ essentially from the 
teachings of theology. Of course all denominations have 
a portion of the truth, but none of them can have all of 
the truth, or there would be no differences among them. 
We are perfectly willing that those who think the Romish 
Church or the Episcopal Church, or Baptist, or Presby- 
terian, or Methodist, or Universalist, or Unitarian con- 
tains all the truth shall worship there. But it is well 
known that Jesus did not establish any creed. The only 
commandment or creed that he gave was the one com- 
mandment, that "ye love one another," and his only doc- 
trinal sermon was the Sermon on the Mount. 

We are perfectly willing to place that Sermon on the 
Mount side by side with our own teaching and the teach- 
ing of Spiritualism. 

Christ's teaching was for the future world; it was the 
establishing of a spiritual instead ot a material kingdom 
on the earth: it was the overcoming of hatred with love, 



SPIRITUALISM AND CHRISTIANITY 143 

instead of overcoming hatred with hatred; it was the re- 
vealment that God is a spiritual instead of material king, 
that heaven is a spiritual instead of a material kingdom. 
He not only defined it, but, in answer to a question, dis- 
tinctly stated that "the kingdom of heaven is within." 
Moreover he freely and fully taught about the kingdom, 
which some of his disciples hoped to share with him; that 
he was "going to prepare a place for them," that where he 
was "they might be also." Your friends, those who pass 
from this side of life, often say this. Jesus distinctly 
conveys the lesson, that the deeds done in human life, 
that daily practices, which are the results of human 
thoughts and conditions, must constitute the foundation 
for the beginning of spirit existence. 

In our view, the teachings of Christianity are very 
simple. The church has made them very complex. 
What with canonical and ecumenical law in Rome and the 
establishing of the Papal See under the reign of Constan- 
tine, and the various ordinances of the church it becomes 
very complex. The Westminster Catechism is no more 
simple, and the laws that have governed the various de- 
nominations. You have departed from these, therefore 
they cannot be finalities. 

The whole Christian world has, in a measure, departed 
from the teachings of the primal church. Whether the 
Church of Rome or the Church of England be the primal 
church, as many maintain, you know that Christianity is 
not what it was two thousand years ago. John Calvin 
taught a more rigorous, but more vindictive teaching be- 
cause of the laxity and corruption that was found in the 
Roman Catholic and afterward in the Protestant Episco- 
pal Church. 

Martin Luther began the Reformation, when, inspired 
by his religious fervor in his lonely cell, he went forth to 
visit Koine to pay his tribute to the highest authority in 
the church. There he found a slate of immorality and 
corruption which lie could not understand as being com- 
patible with the purity of the church. Therefore Martin 
Luther began a mild reformation, which extended to 
political life wiien the dissolute King Henry VIII. ac- 
cepted it as the state religion. Just as Constantino had 
previously accepted the Romish faith. 

The spirit of Christianity, however, manifested itself 
among the dissenting bodies. The various dissenters, 



144 SPIRITUALISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 

especially under the mild teaching of John Wesley, went 
forward with the renewal of the gifts of the spirit. 
While George Fox and the Quakers clearly established 
distinct communion with the spirits, Mother Ann Lee and 
the Shakers still further established the communion of 
ministering spirits. These are but portions of man's ac- 
ceptance, while the teachings of Jesus remain. 

We, as said before, are perfectly willing to take the first 
four gospels of the New Testament — such portions of 
them as claim to contain the teachings of Jesus of Naza- 
reth — and present them to you as our own. But we are 
not willing to take the interpretation of Constantine. 
We are not willing to take the interpretation of the Popes 
and the early fathers of the Romish Church. We are not 
willing to take the interpretation of John Calvin. We are 
not obliged to take the interpretation of John Knox, that 
fiery, northern agitator, who, though conscientious, 
plunged into everlasting torment all who did not agree 
with him. We are not willing to take the wars that have 
sprung up in the name of Christianity and call them ours. 
We are not willing to say, while every foot of British soil 
is stained with the blood of those who have fought in the 
name of Christianity, that we accept either one or the 
other of the contending churches as being wholly right. 
We are not willing to take the swords of the Crusaders and 
consider that they are ours. 

But all through this we are willing to take the gentle 
line of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. We are 
willing to take the law of love as conquering hatred. We 
are willing to take the law of the gifts of the spirits as 
proving and showing spirit power and the excellency of 
man. It is to the credit of this age of Christendom that 
the larger body of Christians are outgrowing denomina- 
tional and sectarian lines; that they are working for the 
good of humanity more than for the good of the creeds or 
dogmas of the church, and that in the great world of hu- 
man thought the real teachings of Jesus have a broader 
and wider sway than when they were narrowed down to 
any especial form of creed. 

Time was when Presbyterians and Baptists would not 
only quarrel with one another, but would be widely sep- 
arated in all their daily life because of the differences in 
creed. Time was when Covenanters and Dissenters could 
not meet without quarreling; time was when Dissenters 



SPIRITUALISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 145 

and members of the Church of England could not meet 
without warfare; time was when the Romish Church and 
the Established Church of England were in perpetual 
strife. All this was not "Christian;" it was simply hu- 
man, and most of it in the lowest plane of human 
existence. 

That theology which bears the name of Christianity for 
the purpose of waging war against the helpless women 
and children, or even against man is not Christian. But 
the spirit of Christ, the spirit of the Sermon on the 
Mount, the spirit of the Golden Rule, the spirit of the 
various gifts of the spirit are Spiritualism. 

To-day the manifestations come according to the needs 
of to-day. To-day this light is poured out into the w r orld 
by various means, according to the world's present needs. 
As this is a materialistic age the manifestations come in 
form of "signs," "tokens" and "wonders" to meet the man 
of science and the materialistic mind. 

To-day the gift of healing, the gift of tongues, the gift 
of the interpretation of tongues, the gift of the working 
of wonders, or "miracles" (so-called) are in the world be- 
cause men must have external signs and tokens as for- 
merly. That these gifts constitute a series of manifesta- 
tions adapted to human need is evident. Such men as Dr. 
Hodgson, Prof. Hyslop, and before them Alfred Russell 
Wallace, Mr. Crookes and a score of scientific men would 
not for one instant have turned their attention to merely 
an ethical proposition or merely to the thought of a fu- 
ture life. But since the manifestation challenges them to 
explain it in the realm of scientific research, and they can- 
not do it, they are constrained — as have been other pro- 
>rs of science — to admit the truth of the spiritual 
hypothesis, just as the unbelieving Jews and Gentiles were 
constrained to admit that the gifts of the spirit must be- 
long to Jesus and his disciples, or those tilings could not 
be wrought. Even in those days it was said they wrought 
those miracles in the name of the "Prince of Devils." So 
theologians have endeavored to explain the manifestations 
of Spiritualism, by saying they all are the works of Satan. 

Henry Ward Beecher, of Brooklyn, the Rev. Mr. 
ilaweis of London, Rev. Mr. Savage of New York, and 
more than a hundred ministers of various denominations 
did not and do not find "Satan" in these manifestations. 



116 SPIRITUALISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 

and therefore consider them worthy of attention and 
credence. 

Spiritualism in fifty-five years has done more to change 
the theology of the world than any other form of thought 
ever accomplished in the same length of time. Chris- 
tianity was many centuries undergoing persecution. It 
was not until after the tenth persecution that Constantine 
became converted and declared against further persecu- 
tions of the Christians. Kings and rulers at that time 
could put to death the advocates of any new theories of 
religion that they feared. It was not until after his con- 
version from the bloody handed measures that he had pre- 
viously adopted, that Constantine caused the persecutions 
to cease. 

Nevertheless, the church in its turn became the perse- 
cutor, even down to the time of the Salem witchcraft. 
You have nothing to be proud of in the persecutions of 
one Christian denomination by another, while science has 
continually encountered similar obstacles. It was only in 
the latter part of the last century that the statue of Bruno 
could be unveiled in the presence of the Vatican without 
offense, while to the Holy See it is a continual offense 
now, but it remains there now by the voice of the people. 

To-day you do not put people to death for this form of 
belief, you do not persecute them except in a mild social 
way; 'but that no longer is fashionable, since many sci- 
entific men and many ministers of different denomina- 
tions have wholly or partially accepted it. 

But Spiritualism teaches the immortality of the soul; 
it teaches a personal future life; it teaches the return of 
spirits to minister to and to communicate with mortals, 
and to watch over them; it teaches that the life on earth 
forms the basis of the coming life, and that every deed 
and thought in earthly life you reap the reward or pen- 
alty of in your own nature or spirit; it teaches all that can 
be taught to the present race concerning the nature of 
man's soul, its past and its future. Unlike the theology 
of the day, it does not limit the possibilities of the knowl- 
edge of man concerning the material or the spiritual 
universe. 

It was the mission of Jesus to point to the God of Love 
instead of one of hatred and revenge; it was his mission to 
point to the spirit as the source of life, instead of material 
nature as the source of life; it was his mission to show that 



SPIRITUALISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 117 

all that is good and great must come from the spirit in- 
stead of from the material conditions; it was his mission 
to show, that whatever is real is from within; that "as a 
man thinketh so is he," that you do not have to commit 
murder to be a murderer, you do not have to steal to be a 
thief, but when you have hatred for your fellow man, that 
is murder, when you think to do your brother wrong, you 
do him wrong, and that whatever good there is in your 
thought that is also real and true. 

Not only can the Christian Scientist, the Theosophist 
and the best in the different denominations find out the 
spirit of Christ's teachings, but it is the universal Word of 
God all over the world. In Persia the Golden Rule is in- 
terpreted: "Do unto others in thought or deed as you 
would have them do unto you." In every language there 
is the Golden Rule. In the Arabic it is: "Feel toward 
others as you would have them feel toward you." For it 
is well known that if you feel kindly or unkindly your ac- 
tion will correspond with the thought or feeling which 
must precede the action. The world is growing nearer to 
this height. 

Spiritualism in the last fifty years (we beg your pardon, 
but it is true) has Christianized Christianity. It has 
brought it from the narrow trammels of creeds to the 
broader range of universal brotherhood; it has established, 
or re-established, the gifts of the spirit that had well nigh 
died out within the church for lack of encouragement; it 
has re-affirmed these gifts as being the natural presenta- 
tion of spirit power to man; it has illustrated them 
through the various signs and manifestations that have 
been given in its name, and, in the gifts of the spirit, it 
has fulfilled the Scriptures. As Jesus said, he came "not 
to destroy, but to fulfill." 

It is only the adhering to the letter thai kills, and the 
giving of tix' spirit that gives life. So Spiritualism came, 
not to destroy, but to fulfill. Young men and maidens, 
old men and matrons have dreamed dreams and have had 
visions; those of youthful years have been made to speak 

words of wisdom far beyond their years; ihor gifts have 
descended upon them and have made an impression all 
over the world. No longer is there the depths mourning 
in time of deal h; no longer the crape, do longer the awful 
shadow of the tomb; but garlands of flowers are fre- 
quently hung upon doors to announce the hirthinto spirit 



148 SPIRITUALISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 

life of a loved inmate of the household, and beautiful 
blossoms fill all the rooms with fragrance to show that the 
life that has gone out has entered a world of blossoming. 

Spiritualism has wrought this change. We have stood 
beside the caskets of the departed with clergymen of all 
denominations, ministering to those who remained in the 
hour of their affliction and their words were pervaded 
with our belief, with our knowledge. When an Episcopal 
minister would say: "I know that the friend whose body 
lies here is with us at the present moment; that he is seek- 
ing to comfort those who are mourning over his body; 
that his guardianship and love can remain with you, dear 
friends, in your mortal life;" that was Spiritualism, and 
he knew it. It was just what was said from us twenty 
minutes before, then it was called Spiritualism. But he 
was an Episcopal clergyman. When the Rev. Dr. Thomas, 
of Chicago, tells his friends that the spirits of the de- 
parted are near, that they can minister to their friends 
here, and take cognizance of the earth life, that they can 
uplift and strengthen their loved ones, not only by im- 
pressions, but by their actual presence, it is accepted as 
Christian theology. Precisely the same words if we utter 
them are called Spiritualism. What is Spiritualism but 
the knowledge of the spirit of God and the spirit of man 
wherever they may be, whatever they may do, and into 
whatever state they may enter? 

However, Spiritualism does not accept the thought of a 
creed; that you must limit your investigations. If there 
is an open door to the other world you have a right to 
know it. If there is a method of communication with 
loved ones who have departed this life, it is your heritage 
to possess it. 

When Dr. Franklin toyed with the lightning, the 
church condemned it; when the steam engine was har- 
nessed to be your truck-horse, the church condemned it; 
when the doorway opened a little over half a century ago, 
so that many had possessed the knowledge of communion 
with the spirit world, the church condemned it. But like 
the electrical knowledge, like the inventions of Edison, 
like the steam engine, which does much of your work, 
those other forces of nature will be harnessed as your 
horse power; the sunshine that is bursting forth with 
promise, the air that oftentimes does not fulfill what it 
might do; the great seas that lie between other lands and 



SPIRITUALISM AXD CHRISTIANITY. 149 

yours, will be made amenable to the powers of the spirit, 
which are more and more unfolding to man. The spirit- 
ual nature is no longer a mystery to be feared or a bubble 
that is to be burst and sent into annihilation. 

The spirit of man is the ego, the weapon of material 
power, that which causes his body to move, his brain to 
think, and Spiritualism — not Christian Science, not the- 
osophy, not occultism — but Spiritualism pure and simple, 
has brought this knowledge to the world. 

We hail any door, or any sidetrack, or any ism that will 
bring more people into relation with the spirit of man. 
But Spiritualism is the fulfillment of the promise of the 
Christ of Christianity: "I will send you the comforter, 
even the spirit of truth who will tell you all things." 

That which brings hope to the hearts of the mourners, 
that which dries the tears of sorrow; that which reveals 
the life that is hidden by man's blindness and material- 
ism; that which shows the way unto all these paths of in- 
quiry and investigation; that which takes the torch of the 
spirit to light the way through the shoals and quicksands 
of material science; that which says to the agnostic and 
materialist, "If you do not know, if you always deny, we 
can tell you;" that which says to the Christian, to the par- 
tially doubting, to the one whose philosophy is trembling 
because of the lack of perfect knowledge, "this is knowl- 
edge;" that which says to the doubting one, "we can con- 
vince you;" that which says to the one that has but faith, 
"you can have full knowledge;" that which declares to the 
Christian Church that Jesus made a claim that has never 
been fulfilled until now, that this "comforter," this "spirit 
of truth" is abroad in the world and will overcome false- 
hood by its truthfulness, will overcome error by its truth, 
will overcome darkness by its light, that the great realm 
of the unseen may be revealed to the consciousness and to 
the usefulness of man for the purpose of bringing him to 
the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount and the Golden 
Rule. 

We declare that Spiritualism and the Christianity of 
Christ are one. We declare that the Christianity of 
Christ and the teaching of Spiritualism and its manifesta- 
tion fully accord, and we declare thai these arc as Ear re- 
moved from the theology of Christendom as war is from 
peace, as hatred is from love, as selfishness is from un- 
selfishness, as aggression is from brotherhood, and that 



150 SPIRITUALISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 

Spiritualism teaches that fraternity which is intended as 
it was in the days of the Sermon on the Mount to over- 
come hatred with love, war with justice and peace, and to 
bring men unto knowledge of the soul and of the spirit as 
triumphing over the limitations of the body and over 
death. 



The Abolition of Death. 



The Ancient and Modern Ideas Graphically Compared 
In An Easter Sermon by Rev. M. J. Savage. 



My text you may rind in the twenty-first chapter of the 
Book of Revelation, the fourth verse, — "And death shall 
be no more." 

Towards the last of his life the late Colonel Ingersoll 
said — I quote his thought, not his language — if we could 
only be certain of continued personal existence, then the 
funeral of a friend would become a triumphal procession, 
a harvest home, accompanied, not by tears and heartbreak, 
but by songs of triumph. 

But what has the attitude of men been towards the fact 
of death? It has been the one thing that has made the 
cup of every joy bitter. It has burdened the heart, it has 
blinded the eyes with tears, it has clouded the brightness 
of the fairest days, and made the hopes of life seem vanity 
and emptiness. 

Perhaps you have noticed, as you have read the "Atsl- 
bian Nights," how the stories, nearly all of them, close — 
And so they lived until he came who is "the destroyer 
of delights and the sunderer of companies." This was 
their way of looking at death. 

In the Old Testament the prevailing idea is that death 
is the end of all things — at any rate, the end of everything 
that appeals to human hope or human cheer. The writer 
of the Book of Ecclesiastes says, "Whatever thy hand 
findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, 
nor device, nor wisdom, nor knowledge in the grave 
whither thou goest." If they had any belief in an under- 
ground life, it was colorless and undesirable. 



THE ABOLITION OF DEATH. 15J 

The old Greeks held a similar idea. They did, indeed, 
believe in Hades; but it was not the crown and triumph of 
life, something to be attained. It was something to be 
hated and shunned. For when Ulysses, in the story as 
Homer tells it, goes down into the underworld and meets 
the spirit of Achilles, he tries to comfort him by telling 
him of the great fame which he still enjoys up here under 
the stars. But Achilles says, Do not try to comfort me 
by any considerations like that. And he goes on to ex- 
plain that he would rather be a servant of a taskmaster, 
engaged in the most menial of occupations here on the 
green earth, than to be the king of all the dead. This 
was the thought of the ancient Greek. 

We know that during the Middle Ages death has. been 
set forth as the terror of mankind; and, because the 
church was believed to have some power over it, it was 
able for centuries to dictate terms to kings and rule the 
empires with a power not possessed by the emperors them- 
selves. Death has been the king of terrors, the one last 
dread, the end of everything fair and sweet and good. 

Longfellow, you know, tells us, 

"The air is full of farewells to the dying, 

And mournings for the dead; 
The heart of Rachel, for her children crying, 

Will not be comforted." 

And in spite of the fact that people claim to believe, or 
think they believe, death is not robbed of his terrors, the 
fact of death is not abolished. 

Let me read you a snatch from a letter received within 
the last few days. I do it because it is so typical of the 
feelings of the human heart: "For months, ages, it seems, 
my whole being has been overwhelmed by lliis sorrow. 
No ether thought occupies my heart night or day. Time, 
change, nothing brings relief." 

I am aware that there are philosophical thinkers who, 
feeling compelled to give up any real belief in a future 
life, try to comfort themselves with the thought thai the 
destiny of man is not so very hard after all. And yet 
those who dare, face the fad speak of it in words like 
these. This is a saying of Mr. John Fiske: "If the 
world's long-cherished beliefs arc to fall, in God's name lei 
them fall, hut save us from the intellectual hypocrisy thai 
goes about pretending that we are none the poorer"' 
That is his attitude towards the fact of death. 



152 THE ABOLITION OF DEATH. 

I wish to give yon the word of one other famous writer. 
Years ago a book was published entitled "Theism;" the 
name of the author was not given, but rather the pen 
name, "Physicus." At the close of what he regards as a 
scientific demonstration that there is no God and no fu- 
ture, he records the feeling that he has in view of these 
facts in the following words: 

"And forasmuch as I am far from being able to agree 
with those who affirm that the twilight doctrine of the 
'new faith' is a desirable substitute for the waning splen- 
dor of 'the old/ I am not ashamed to confess that with 
this virtual negation of God the universe to me has lost its 
soul of loveliness; and, although from henceforth the pre- 
cept to 'work while it is day' will doubtless but gain an 
intensified force from the terribly intensified meaning of 
the words that 'the night cometh when no man can work/ 
yet when at times I think, as think at times I must, of the 
appalling contrast between the hallowed glory of that 
creed which once was mine, and the lonely mystery of ex- 
istence as now I find it — at such times I shall ever feel it 
impossible to avoid the sharpest pang of which my nature 
is susceptible." 

And then he goes on to close with the quotation of the 
terrific oracle to Oedipus: 

"Mayest thou ne'er know the truth of what thou art." 

I have a friend, a lawyer of much more than usual 
ability. Two or three years ago he was talking to me on 
this subject, and he expressed himself substantially after 
this fashion: "Here I am, walking a narrow plank that 
reaches out into the mist. I cannot see its end. I can 
only go on, step by step, into the darkness, and almost 
any day, I do not know when, I must step over the end 
into — nobody knows what." And he added, "I do not 
like it." This is the attitude of thousands of people to- 
day towards this great fact of death. Is it not true still, 
what Saint Paul indicated when, nearly two thousand 
years ago, he spoke of the condition of the world as, 
through fear of death, being perpetually in bondage? 

Is there any way conceivable, then, by which death may 
be abolished, practically, for you and for me? There has 
been one period in human history when for a time death 
was practically abolished. I refer to the first few years of 
the history of Christianity. I do not know anything like 
it anywhere else in all the world. Paul, you remember, 
says from his point of view, "To die is gain," that "to de- 



THE ABOLITION OF DEATH. 153 

part and be with Christ is far better;" and he cries out: 
"0 Death, where is thy sting? Grave, where is thy vic- 
tory?" He had, as he believed, a knowledge — not a faith 
merely — a knowledge that abolished death and put a 
meaning and a victory into human life such as it had not 
known from the beginning of the world until then. 

And this was a victory which was shared by thousands 
of early Christian believers. And I ask you to review that 
period in the history of the world, and see if I be not right 
when I say that it was this great belief if a Power that 
had conquered death which made the young church mas- 
ter of Eome and master of the world. 

For what was it they believed? They had expected the 
coming of the Jewish Messiah. Jesus came, unannounced, 
and at last propounded the belief that he was the one that 
the ages had been expecting. But by and by, coming in 
conflict with the authorities, on a Friday afternoon, he is 
thrust outside the walls of the city and hung upon a tree. 
And he died, and the hopes of the disciples died with him. 

Do you remember these two, on their way to Emmaus, 
how they said to the casual stranger who joined them in 
their walk, "We trusted that this had been he who was to 
have redeemed Israel?" But the trust was gone; they were 
crushed and scattered. But by and by, the daring whisper 
goes forth from lip to lip, and kindling hope from heart to 
heart, that the Master has been seen; and that means to 
those who could receive it that he had broken the bondage 
of death — not only for himself, but for all those who 
would trust in him. For, do you know, up to this time in 
Jewish history only two persons had ever gone to heaven, 
Enoch and Elijah; the rest were in Sheol, the underworld; 
and when Jesus broke loose from the bondage of death, he 
made an open way for others to follow him, became "the 
first fruits of them that slept," the promise of victory and 
deliverance for mankind. 

This was the hope that sprung up in the hearts of the 
early disciples. They believed that Jesus was alive, and 
that meant that for humanity death was to be no more. 
For Paul believed and the early church believed — you 
need to know it and have it freshly in mind — that the 
Blaster was to reappear in the clouds of heaven, almost 
anytime — at the farthest, as expressed in words put into 
the lips of Jesus himself, before this present generation 
shall have passed away, within t weniy-livc or thirty years. 



154 THE ABOLITION OF DEATH. 

He was to appear. Then those who had died before he 
came were to be brought forth from the grave; and those 
that remained alive were suddenly to be transformed, to 
put off the mortal and put on the immortal body, and 
meet the Lord triumphant in the air. 

This was the belief of Paul. It was this belief that fired 
his heart as he went forth on his missionary journeys. It 
was this belief that made maidens and young men, full of 
the hope and joy of life, meet the lions in the arena with 
a smile. It was this belief that made people eager to show 
their faith by martyrdom. They cared nothing for death; 
it was a fact put behind them, no longer having about it 
any touch of fear. 

Do you wonder they conquered Eome? Put into the 
hearts of several thousands of enthusiastic people a hope, 
a belief in the immortal life, a belief that the death of the 
body means only the triumph and glory of the spirit all 
the sooner, and you have an army of men without fear; 
and conquest for such is easy. That was the belief of the 
early church. 

Has it persisted? Is it the belief of the church to-day? 
You know it is not. Look upon those who claim to be 
Christians of the olden type, and to believe that this 
Easter morning celebrates the victory of the Master over 
death. Look at them, I say; and when a friend is taken 
away see them heartbroken, see them covered with crepe, 
see them cast down and without any cheering hope. The 
old belief is getting old; it is getting dim; it is far away. 
And, friends, if we propose to be quite honest and frank 
with ourselves, we must admit this one fact, that there 
never, since the dawn of Christianity, were so many peo- 
ple doubting concerning the future life as there are now; 
and they are not the ignorant people, they are not the bad 
people. They are the best people there are, or as good 
as there are. They are readers, thinkers, persons ac- 
quainted with philosophy and science, who have studied 
history, looked into ecclesiastical tradition. They are 
people who say, We must be honest with ourselves in- 
tellectually; and, being such, we see no adequate reason 
for belief in a life after death. This is the attitude of 
thousands of people in the modern world; and if I do not 
misread the facts, the number of these people is growing. 
It would have to be not merely a popular rumor but a fact 



THE ABOLITION OF DEATH. 155 

scientifically investigated and verified by overwhelming 
evidence. 

And let us admit freely one other fact. If a person asks 
me whether I think there is satisfactory evidence that the 
body of Jesus was raised from the dead, I must be frank 
and say I do not. Xo case in a modern court could be 
carried through successfully unless there were in its favor 
better evidence than we have for the resurrection of the 
body of Jesus. There is no first-hand testimony of any- 
body to that fact; and we know perfectly well that, if we 
had the testimony of a hundred or a thousand to a similar 
fact as taking place to-dav, it would weigh with us very 
little. 

Here, then, we are. Such I must say, in all candor and 
honesty; but let me balance that by saying something else. 
I cannot prove it to you scientifically as yet; but I believe 
with my whole soul that Jesus was seen alive after the 
crucifixion, and that out of that seeing sprang the great 
conviction which made the church triumphant over the 
empire of Rome. Out of that seeing might easily arise 
the belief that the body itself had risen. 

Why do I believe it? I cannot go into any prolonged 
exposition of this faith this morning. I can simply say 
to you that, if I can believe that anybody since that time, 
who has been called dead, has been seen again, then it is. 
perfectly easy for me to believe "that Jesus may have been 
seen; and if there be any reason for believing a fact like 
this, then death shall befno more, for the natural fact of 
the natural immortality of man would be thereby demon- 
strated. 

I propose for the time left me this morning to touch 
upon a few of those things which constitute the burden, 
the sting, the terror of death, and to outline a theory of 
things which, if we can accept, would abolish it, and give 
us victory over the grave. I shall not have time to enter 
upon proof, even attempted proof, of the positions I take. 
I >hall, however, make no statement on behalf of which 
I believe thai proof mighl noi he offered. I shall say 
nothing that i> noi entirely reasonable and consonant with 
all our scientific knowledge of the universe. 

The first terror of death is tin' fact that we must leave 
this fair and beautiful world, no more look at tin 1 bright- 
ness of the sun by day or the beauty of tin- Btars by night; 
that we must go out into — what? Nobody knows, we 
are told. 



156 THE ABOLITION OF DEATH. 

Suppose, in place of this, that we may believe, what I 
do believe, that this physical universe of ours is immersed 
in what we may call, for lack of a better name, a spiritual 
universe. By "spiritual" what do I mean? It is very 
difficult to tell or to make clear. Science, however, talks 
about the "ether," a form of matter intangible, invisible, 
inaudible, and yet more wonderful than anything that can 
be touched or heard or seen; and it is demonstrated that 
such form of matter exists. We have learned enough 
about this material universe to know that the invisible and 
intangible and inaudible forces are unspeakably mightier 
and grander than all with which our senses ordinarily 
bring us into contact. 

Suppose, then, that we are immersed in a universe like 
this, as real as this — if there be any distinction, unspeak- 
ably more real— thrilling, throbbing with a life of which 
we can only dimly conceive as yet — and suppose that, 
when we go away from the presence of the sun and the 
stars, we go into a world grander, fairer than this. If we 
can believe that, then the terror of going is taken away. 

Another thing that seems bitterer, perhaps, even than 
this is the separation from friends, the parting with those 
we love; and, I take it, it makes little matter whether it is 
by their going or our own; it is being separated from 
somebody dearer to us than all the world. This is what 
makes death bitter. 

But suppose we can believe that this separation is only 
temporary, only for a little while. We can bear to have 
friends go to Europe, to Australia, to the East, if we know 
they still live and remember and love us. We could put 
up with the fact of not seeing them again for ten or 
twenty or thirty years if we could feel assured that some 
time again we should see them, that we could look in their 
eyes once more, clasp their hands once more, hear the 
familiar voice once more, and know they were just the 
same old friends as ever. This I believe. 

There are thousands of people who believe that death is 
the end of all; and if there is anything that we shrink 
from, it is the ceasing of this conscious life of ours, the 
going out into blank nothingness. Suppose we may be- 
lieve that there is nothing in the fact of death that 
touches us in any material way of change; suppose we may 
believe that, when we pass into the shadow, it is only to 
come out into the light again, and to find that we are 
ourselves. 



THE ABOLITION OF DEATH. 157 

I do not believe, friends, that there is anything in the 
fact of death that changes us any more than going to sleep 
last night and waking up this morning. Why should 
there be? It is only tradition and an unfounded idea that 
it can have any such effect. I believe that death is only 
another kind of birth; that we graduate from this life, 
take the next step in an ever-advancing and ever-rising 
career of progress, and that we are just ourselves over 
there. 

There is another terror that has haunted the imagina- 
tions of the world concerning this fact of death; and, 
though we who think we are more enlightened and 
liberated from some of the old superstitions have out- 
grown it, and though we sometimes fancy, thinking the 
whole world is like that little part of it which we are' 
familiar with, that these things are left behind, yet there 
are millions, millions of people burdened and horrified by 
the fear that there is something in death which fixes the 
condition for good or evil, for joy or sorrow, forever. 
Millions of people in this country to-day still believe it, 
though every little while we are told in some newspaper 
paragraph that that is a thing of the past, and that, if any 
minister takes the trouble to preach against it, he is fight- 
ing a man of straw. 

Suppose in place of that we can believe that God is just 
as good on the other side of death as he is on this side. 
Suppose we can believe, what is absolutely demonstrated 
as true, that it is one God and one law on both sides of 
death, in this world and in all worlds; that there is no such 
thing as arbitrary reward or arbitrary punishment, but 
that throughout the universe there are only results, in- 
evitable results, beneficent results, wisely ordered results. 

For, friends, let us not delude ourselves with the idea 
that, even if we believe in continued existence, it makes no 
difference how we live here We make ourselves; and in 
making ourselves we make our hells and our heavens in 
thifl world and in all worlds, and not only now, but for 
evermore A broken law musl mean the result of a broken 
law; and God himself cannot help it without introducing 
disorder and breach into his perfed universe. 

If we may believe that, when we have passed through 

the fact of death, wo are jusi ourselves, what wo have 

made ourselves, freed from certain burdens and disabili- 
ties, with the opportunity -till to go up or down as we 



158 THE ABOLITION" OF BEATH. 

please, but with better opportunities for knowing the 
truth, for seeing clearly our situation, and so with larger 
inducements for going up and on — if we may believe this, 
then the greatest horror that has ever been connected 
with death, that fear of "something after death" of which 
Hamlet speaks, is taken away and we are free, in a free 
universe, with a loving God and Father and Helper and 
Friend to watch over us and lead us in whatever world we 
may find ourselves. 

There is another fear connected with death. I find it 
in many a heart. Tennyson gives expression to it in more 
than one passage in his "In Memoriam." He wonders as 
to whether his friend Hallam will outgrow him, become 
so spiritualized, so wise, so noble in that other realm that 
the old ties and friendships of this life will become as 
nothing to him. And so I find in many another soul the 
fear that the loved in the other life may outgrow us, and 
that, when we get there, we shall have lagged so far be- 
hind that there can be no real re-establishment of the old 
sweet relations that made the past so dear. 

I believe, friends, and it seems to me inevitable in the 
nature of the soul, that precisely the opposite to this is 
true. Jesus, the grandest soul in history, was not, for his 
greatness or his nobility and his spirituality, separated 
from people. He was not separated from the poor, the 
lowly, even from the sinful. He was brought close to 
them in that infinite, divine pity and sympathy that 
would lift and lead and help. 

There are cases of supposed intellectual greatness 
coupled with unmanly personal conceit which have 
seemed to lift people above, at any rate out of sympathy 
with, their old-time friends. But the really great soul is 
greatest of all in tenderness and love, and stooping, brood- 
ing, lifting sympathy and care. And so I believe it true 
that those we have loved on the other side will not out- 
grow us, but, as they become mightier in spiritual statute, 
will only come closer and closer to us. So the theory 
which even the great soul of Lowell could put into verse 
seems to me unfounded. You will remember that he says 
concerning his own little girl who died: 

"Immortal? I feel it, I know it, 

Who doubts it of such as she? 
But that is the pang's very secret, — 

Immortal, away from me." 



THE ABOLITION OF DEATH. 159 

No, friends, let not that fear haunt us. Immortal, not 
away from us, but ever nearer, closer, in a bondage of love 
that never can be broken. 

Then there are people who fear that there will be no 
opportunity to reorganize conditions over there, that they 
must be forever tied in bondage to associations which have 
established themselves here. I believe that many things 
which bring us into personal relations in this life are of 
the present, of the body, springing out of passing con- 
ditions, and that the bonds which hold us together when 
we are released will be the real ones, the ones that are 
created in the very essential nature of our being. 

And the lives we have lived here are not wasted. This 
indicates another fear to which I have heard many a soul 
give expression. They say, We have studied, labored, 
learned here, but that life over there is so different from 
this that all that we have done here is> thrown away. I 
believe, friends, that that life is such a natural continuity, 
that it is so closely linked with the present, that all we 
have done and known and suffered and sinned here, if we 
can rise above our sins and put them under feet, only help 
to make us into fitness for the life on which there we shall 
enter. 

And so every duty well done, every kindly word spoken, 
every lesson learned, every sympathetic touch that binds 
us to somebody in sorrow and trouble, every action which 
indicates that we are men and women in the true and high 
sense of that word — all these things are only accumulat- 
ing experiences and developments and growths that shall 
be carried on and help us to enter, with advantage, on that 
next stage in our career. 

I have said, friends, that this is what I believe. I can- 
not enter upon the task of offering you evidence for it this 
morning. I believe that evidence, at any rate looking 
that way, evidence accumulating and increasing day by 
day, week by week, year by year, is coming more and more 
to underlie and buttress these beliefs; thai this is the the- 
ory of human life thai is by and by to lake possession of 
the intelligent beliefs of men. 

T cannot think thai thie greal universe, rising under the 
impulse of infinite lifting and guidance for million- of 
years, is hy nnd by to be Bnuffed out, is by and by to 
plunge ever ;m abyss into eternal darkness and night. I 
cannot believe that the end of ;«ll our knowledge is to be 



160 THE ABOLITION OF DEATH. 

that "there is nothing in it." I cannot believe that, as 
John Fiske says, we are to be put to a "permanent intel- 
lectual confusion." I believe that this is the prologue to 
a great drama, a drama illustrating infinite wisdom and 
infinite power and infinite love; that this is the prologue; 
that we are seeing here the rising of the curtain; and that 
what we call death is only a lowering of the curtain for the 
time that precedes the first great act; and that this is to 
go on unfolding in beauty and wonder and glory forever- 
more. 

Now at the end may I read to you two or three words, 
familiar to you because they are so wonderful and beau- 
tiful and strong, which fitly crown that to which I have 
tried to give expression? 

"There shall never be one lost good! What was, shall 
live as before; 
The evil is null, is naught, is silence implying sound; 
What was good shall be good, with for evil so much good 
more; 
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven, a perfect 
round." 

If we may cherish the great beliefs I have tried to sug- 
gest this morning, then we may walk through life, not as 
those impelled by an evil force from behind — walk 
through life not dreading to grow old, walk through life 
believing that old age is not decay, but only ripening. 
We may walk through life until we come to what was the 
great Terror, and look him in the face and find that he is 
a friend. 

"Fear death? — to feel the fog in my throat, 

The mist in my face, 
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote 

I am nearing the place, 
The power of the night, the press of the storm, 

The post of the foe; 
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form, 

Yet the strong man must go; 
For the journey is done and the summit attained, 

And the barriers fall, 
Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained, 

The reward of it all. 
I was ever a fighter, so — one fight more. 

The best and the last ! 



THE ABOLITION OF DEATH. 161 

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forebore, 

And bade me creep past. 
No ! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers 

The heroes of old, 
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears 

Of pain, darkness, and cold. 
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave, 

The black minute's at end, 
And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave, 

Shall dwindle, shall blend, 
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain, 

Then a life, then thy breast, 
thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, 

And with God be the rest!" 

Father, in this great trust let us work, let us wait, let us 
be patient, let us be cheerful, and with the words ringing 
in our ears, "And death shall be no more," let us press on 
to that fullness of life that waits thy children forever. 
Amen. 



Burying Alive a Frequent Peril. 

Incidents Relating to the Occurrence as Recited by 

Prof. Alexander Wilder, M. D., of 

Newark, N. J, 



When engaged in discourse with a brother physician, 
some time ago, I remarked that I had given attention to 
the subject of trance and suspended animation, and that 
I had apprehended the danger in such conditions of being 
buried alive. 

"I believe that this often happens," my friend replied. 

This matter sometimes gains a notice in the public jour- 
nals. The New York World gave a page to it several 
weeks ago. Occasionally, likewise a case occurs where 
such a fate was barely avoided or actually took place. A 
telegraphic dispatch of May 9th described a commotion at 
Salt Lake City, because the physician refused to sign a 
certificate of death, declaring that the person was only in 
a trance and not yet dead. So resolute were the members 
of the family for interment as to procure such a certificate 
from the Health Commissioner of the city. 

Perhaps they were right, but it is a fearful subject to 
contemplate. We hear of other instances, comparatively 
recent, where terrible mistakes had been made. On the 
23d of March last the undertaker at Mullica Hill, N. J., 
employed in the removal of some bodies from the vil- 
lage cemetery, which it was intended to place in the Mon- 
ument Cemetery at Philadelphia. One of these was the 
body of a boy of six years old that had been buried some 
twenty years ago. As the crumbling cofhn was opened 
the skeleton was found drawn up in a manner that told a 
mute story of a horrible struggle. The arms were bent 



BURYING ALIVE A FREQUENT PERIL. 163 

over the skull, one leg was drawn up and the other crossed 
it in a way to afford unmistakable evidence that the little 
sufferer had been hurried to the grave while yet alive. 

Another case of similar horror occurred at Sandy Creek, 
near the city of Rochester, N. Y., early in January. Vett 
Case, a man thirty-five years old, was sick with scarlet 
fever and supposed to have died. He lay unconscious for 
several hours on the 4th, was pronounced dead by the 
physician, and buried two days later. On the 29th of 
March his father died, and when arrangements were made 
to dig the grave in the family plot it was found necessary 
to move the son's coffin several feet. Upon disinterring 
the casket the ^rave-diggers found the glass front of the 
coffin shattered to pieces, the bottom kicked out and the 
sides considerably sprung. The lid was then removed 
and the body of Vett Case was found resting on its face, 
with the arms bent at the sides, and in the clenched fists 
were handfuls of hair, showing that a terrible struggle 
had taken place. 

Better fortune fell to the lot of Joseph N. Manning, of 
Mount Vernon, X. Y. He was a commercial traveler, and. 
coming home from a trip some months ago, he was taken 
ill, and the case was supposed to be typhoid fever. The 
"usual medical treatment" was accordingly given. This 
was on Saturday, and on Sunday he lost consciousness. 
On Monday respiration ceased, and it appeared that the 
end had come He lay in this condition twenty hours. 
Then came a gasp from the body, and a few minutes later 
respiration was apparent, though weak and irregular. The 
action of the heart was also perceived, but it was faint 
and fitful. Half an hour later he opened his eyes, and 
soon after asked for water. Convalescence ensued, and 
he explained that he was perfectly conscious during the 
trance. He knew what was going on, saw and heard the 
weeping of his relatives, am! the physician discussing 
whether he was really dead. He could not move a muscle 
nor utter a Bound, hut his brain was active and he compiv 
bended everything that went on around hini. 

Bishop Fallows, of the Reformed Episcopal Church. 
Chicago, tells a remarkable story of the same category, 
more marvelous in particulars, bul more happy in it- se- 
quel. The Wife of a young man, living on the North 

Side, had heeii Beriously ill. and death was Bupposed to 



164 BURYING ALIVE A FREQUENT PERIL. 

have taken place. Two or three days later she was buried 
in Rose Hill Cemetery. Fortunately, no embalmers had 
been employed. The interment took place in the after- 
noon. In the middle of the night the husband heard his 
name called distinctly several times. He was what is 
called a "materialist," and he deemed the hearing of the 
voice an hallucination. Going to sleep, he was again 
awakened by hearing his name called in a more insistent 
tone. At daybreak the voice came again, calling him by 
name and adding imploringly: "Save me! save me!" He 
sprang from the bed and hurried to another room where a 
cousin was sleeping who had passed the evening with him. 
"We must hurry to the cemetery," he exclaimed, "she is 
calling." 

Procuring spades and a carriage, the two made their 
way to the place. In a fury of excitement they dug down 
to the coffin and wrenched off the lid. She was turning 
over, but fortunately was unconscious. They removed 
her from the coffin and conveyed her home. She never 
learned that she had been buried alive, and it is apparent 
that she was in a trance all the time that she was in the 
grave. She made a slow recovery. 

All these examples are too well authenticated for any 
candid disputing, and there are more that may be given. 
I know a lady, a physician of our school, who was resusci- 
tated from apparent death at her birth, and who, after 
growing up, was supposed several times to have died, but 
had the good fortune to be restored to consciousness be- 
fore the undertaker began his work. Others have told me 
similar stories about themselves. 

The late Washington Bishop, was subject to cataleptic 
conditions. He took the precaution to put his friends on 
the guard that they might protect him in such a case 
from being passed upon as dead. He was prostrated, 
however, in New York, when no friend was near. He fell 
into the hands of some over-zealous medical men and the 
sequel is well known. 

A writer in The Nineteenth Century, twenty years ago, 
informed us that at the public mortuary of Paris about 
one in every three hundred persons, supposed to be dead, 
actually came to life again. At that rate, some hundreds 
must be buried alive in the larger cities of America, for 
very few of the precautions are taken that are required in 
several European countries. 



BURYING ALIVE A FREQUENT PERIL. 165 

In the second week in May of the present year a case 
occurred at Bellevue Hospital, in the city of New York, 
which is pertinent to the present subject. Ellen Meyer, 
a young woman of twenty-four, living at No. 573 Ninth 
Avenue, was taken from her home on Wednesday, the 
16th, and carried to the hospital. She was insensible and 
continued so. Pins were thrust into her body, and other 
means taken to awaken her, without effect. Her mother 
told the physician that the daughter would go into these 
trances about every three months. She would lie in a 
deep sleep as if lifeless for three or four days, and, after 
coming to consciousness, would go about her duties as 
though nothing unusual had occurred. Her term of in- 
sensibility while at the hospital seems to have been pro- 
longed, and I have not learned the outcome. 

Henry Laurens, of South Carolina, for a time President 
of Congress during the American Revolution, had a 
daughter of remarkable talent and accomplishments. She 
was taken ill with smallpox, and was finally supposed to 
have died. Her body was duly shrouded and coffined, 
and the burial service was performed. Just at the critical 
point she recovered animation, was rescued, lived to wo- 
manhood and married. Afterwards, when Mr. Laurens 
himself had died, it was found to be the condition of every 
legacy in his will that his body should be burned. A pyre 
was built accordingly upon his plantation and his wishes 
carried out. 

There is a general distrust among intelligent individu- 
als in regard to the trustworthiness of the common medi- 
cal certificates of death. I entertain the same feeling my- 
self. I am unwilling to believe a person dead simply 
upon that authority, and I have a profound terror lest I 
shall yet be subjected to the same uncertain verdict. 

The late Judge Charles J. Daniels, of Buffalo, N. Y., 
left a charge to his family not to dispose of his body till 
death had been found absolutely certain, because, he de- 
clared, he had no confidence in medical certificates. 

Bishop Berkeley, the celebrated metaphysician, Daniel 
(yConnell, and Lord Bnlwer Lytton, the statesman and 
author, entertained similar apprehensions of being buried 
alive. Wilkie Collin- always Left a letter on his dressing- 
table in which he enjoined that if he should he found 
dead in the morning, his body should be carefully exam- 



166 BURYING ALIVE A FREQUENT PERIL. 

ined by a physician. Hans Christian Andersen carried a 
letter in his pocket asking his friends in case of emergency 
to make sure of death before the burial. Harriet Mar- 
tineau bequeathed ten pounds to her physician to make 
sure that her head was amputated. Miss Ada Cavendish, 
the actress, left a clause in her will directing that the jug- 
ular vein in her body should be severed. Edmund Yates 
bequeathed ten guineas for the same purpose. Lady Bur- 
ton, the widow of Sir Richard Burton, was subjects to fits 
of trance, and feared that such an attack might be taken 
for death. She ordered that her heart be pierced with a 
needle, and her body be submitted to a post-mortem ex- 
amination. 

The fact is that medical certificates are often perfunc- 
tory, and given simply to meet the requirements of the 
law. As many are consigned to the mad house without 
judge or jury almost, so others are placed in the grave 
upon the word of a physician, who has not made a critical 
examination of the case. If the undertakers were to tell 
the facts that have come under their eye, the blood would 
run cold with horror. 

Death which is actually instantaneous or sudden, sel- 
dom occurs, except in cases of violence. Life withdraws 
from the body gradually; death comes to its place in one 
part after another, creeping through the tissues, and 
sometimes defying all tests to prove that it is there. "Un- 
der Nature's laws/' says Dr. A. B. Granville, "there is no 
such thing as sudden death." "There has been in every 
case a preparation, more or less antecedent to the occur- 
rence, which must inevitably have led to it." 

The fakirs of India have abundantly demonstrated by 
numerous examples that a condition of body can be pro- 
duced voluntarily which may continue for a period of in- 
definite length, and all the time resemble death itself, ex- 
cept that there will be no disorganization of the tissues. 
For a sufficient reward these mountebanks will consent to 
enter this state of apparent death and be buried; and after 
a period of weeks they are disinterred and resuscitated. 
It may be conjectured that Orientals having a constitu- 
tion and temperament of body very different from West- 
erns, are the only individuals capable of such a feat. But 
actual experiment has shown that Europeans are at least 
sometimes endowed with similar powers. In 1895 there 



BURYING ALIVE A FREQUENT PERIL. 167 

was exhibited at the Westminster Royal Aquarium a man 
in the mesmeric trance, which lasted thirty days, during 
which he was absolutely unconscious. Another example 
was afforded some months later, when Alfred Wootton 
was placed in the mesmeric trance at the same establish- 
ment, his nose and ears stopped with wax, after the man- 
ner of the fakirs, and he secured in a stout casket, which 
was buried under seven or eight feet of earth. Arrange- 
ments were carefully made, however, for respiration, and 
to moisten his lips occasionally. At the end of six days 
lie was exhumed in the presence of a large crowd of spec- 
tators. Many tests were applied to show the audience 
that the man was perfectly insensible. A -large needle 
was thrust through the flesh on the back of his hand with- 
out any sign of there being any sensation. Electricity was 
also applied. As soon as he became conscious Wootton 
said that he could see nothing and asked for drink. Milk 
with a little brandy was given him and he was lifted out 
of his box. He soon became able to walk with help, but 
his limbs were stiff and he was very weak, as well as sensi- 
tive to the temperature. At first he felt chilly, but after- 
ward complained of the oppressive heat. He soon recov- 
ered from his experiences. 

These experiments were not severe as those with the In- 
dian fakirs, but sufficiently so to illustrate the matter. 
"There seems to be hardly any limitation/' Colonel Vol- 
lum remarks, " in regard to the time during which a body 
may be preserved and become reanimated again, provided 
it is well protected, although modern ignorance may smile 
at this statement." 

The forty days' fast of Dr. Henry S. Tanner, at Claren- 
don Hall, New York, which has been imitated by several 
others, shows that the human body, under certain circum 
stances, can sustain long abstention from food. The sus- 
pending of respiration is the more difficult problem, but 
examples show that in trance conditions this may occur to 
a great degree. Many animals and insects become uncon- 
scious, and are even apparently dead during the cold 
months, but return to life and activity with warm weather. 
Some reverse this and become torpid in summer. It 
would seem that human beings 'may once have had a simi- 
lar habit of hibernation, and that some traces of it are yet 
retained. 



1 68 BURYING ALIVE A FREQUENT PERIL. 

Among the forms and perhaps the causes of apparent 
death are hysteria,, asphyxia, trance, electric shock, cata- 
lepsy. Whatever tends to produce abnormal conditions 
of the nervous system may bring about such a result, as 
well as that of unequivocal dissolution. A volume may 
be written upon this department of the subject without 
exhausting it. We have all witnessed hysteria producing 
convulsive manifestations, fictitious epilepsy, temporary 
palsy, and even insensibility. Persons have been hanged 
and afterward resuscitated. Lightning does not always 
kill. Even when the person seems to be dead he has re- 
covered from the shock of cold water falling upon him. 
Persons prostrated by gases in the bottom of a well have 
sometimes been restored under copious effusions of cold 
water. It may be a question whether the mode of execu- 
tion by electricity is what does the work of death, or 
whether it is the knife of the surgeons who supplement it 
by a post-mortem operation. 

The undertaker who embalms the bodies of the dead is 
liable to a similar imputation. He certainly, like the sur- 
geon, makes death sure. But who would willingly take 
such responsibility? Trance results from a variety of 
causes; some of them beyond scientific explanation. The 
term implies a person going beyond ordinary conditions, 
as though the real personality had left the body. We have 
mentioned Washington Bishop, who was subject to these 
peculiar experiences. His mother, also, had similar 
trances; in one of them she lay six days, seeing and hear- 
ing, but unable to speak or even move. She saw the ar- 
rangements for her funeral, and only the determined re- 
sistance of her brother kept away the embalmers. On the 
seventh day she came to herself, but she never recovered 
from the effects of the agony that she endured. 

Catalepsy differs from trance in important particulars. 
It is occasioned by some obstruction in the organic mech- 
anism of the body on account of its exhausted nervous 
power. It may be a form of hysteria, and it is commonly 
attended with loss of consciousness. The limbs remain in 
the same position as at the outset, and the muscles, in 
whole or in part, are rigid. In profound conditions sen- 
sibility is lost to touch, pain or electricity, and no reflex 
movement can be induced. Sometimes the fits are very 
short, lasting only a few moments, so that spectators do 



BURYING ALIVE A FREQUENT PERIL. 169 

not notice them; at other times they last for days and days 
together. The rigor mortis is one feature of the attack. 

Some of the medicines that are in frequent use are re- 
sponsible for much of this liability to apparent death. 
The "witch herbs" of the middle ages — aconite, belladon- 
na, veratrum, cannabis and digitalis — have became favor- 
ite drugs with physicians. They were formerly used to 
produce abnormal conditions, which the common people 
supposed were effects of a communication with supernat- 
ural powers, and it is by no means improbable that they 
now sometimes cause individuals to have curious fantasies, 
and even to fall into conditions resembling death. 

This subject, I may remark, has engaged my attention 
for many years. I have been both astonished and even 
discouraged at the difficulty of arousing public attention 
to it. In 1870, when I was president of our State Medical 
Society, I took occasion, at the annual meeting in the 
Capitol of the state at Albany, to discuss this subject in 
my address. I was heard in silence. Some days after- 
ward I prepared the draft of a statute requiring greater 
certainty of death before permitting the interment of a 
body. My friend, Mr. A. X. Parker, of St. Lawrence 
county, then a senator, introduced it for me in the senate 
of the state, but told me that it stood no chance with the 
judiciary committee. His prediction proved true; it slept 
the sleep of legislative death. 

Those, however, who seem most ready to put public 
anxiety to sleep in this matter are medical men. Few 
months pass without some article in a newspaper to lull 
apprehension in regard to the danger of being buried 
alive. If alarm is raised some medical hypnotizer is ready 
to tell the public that there is no occasion for alarm; that 
medical science is so advanced, and knowledge of this 
matter so thorough, that such a thing is well-nigh impos- 
sible. Like the commander of His Majesty's ship, Pina- 
fore, such men are ready on the instant to affirm that 
burying alive never happens; and when the "never" 13 
questioned they attempt to soothe us by saying, "Hardly 
ever." 

Physicians are often not philosophers, and it is by no 
means wonderful that Bometimes they are not skillful in 
relation to the phenomena incidenl to the waning of life. 
The medical art is not so much the accumulated wisdom 



170 BURYING ALIVE A FREQUENT PERIL. 

and experience of ages and centuries as the exploiting of 
the most recent notions. We do well to obtain our con- 
clusions from a wider field and a higher inspiration. The 
matter now under discussion is of too much importance to 
everyone to be dismissed without absolute assurance. We 
do not wish our anxiety to be soothed, except we are sure 
that the causes of it are removed. 

Among the peoples that we esteem to be less civilized 
than ourselves there certainly exists gross carelessness in 
respect to this subject. The Hindus, who burn their 
dead, are said to hurry the bodies to theluneral pyre speed- 
ily after they have taken a death-like appearance, making- 
no investigation or attempt to resuscitate them. Some 
have regained consciousness, however, before it was too 
late. The Parsees often place a dog by the side of the in-* 
dividual, believing that the animal knows when the per- 
son is dead. Yet persons supposed to be dead have been 
placed on their "Towers of Silence," and come again to 
life. Vultures, it is said, will not attack the body of a liv- 
ing person. The Turks are remarkable for the precipi- 
tancy with which they hurry to dispose of their dead, and 
there can be little intelligent doubt of the frequent bury- 
ing of persons while yet alive. It is affirmed of the Jews 
in the Old World that it is their custom to bury their dead 
in a few hours after dissolution, and that there are no 
pains taken to bring to life those who may only be appar- 
ently dead. 

Christendom has likewise a history of horror. When 
an epidemic rages, its victims are often hurried to the 
grave as soon as death is supposed to have occurred. With 
such heedlessness is this done, such inexcusable careless- 
ness, that a crime is likely to be committed, only less black 
in shade than willful murder itself. In ordinary times, 
when the epidemic influence is of a milder character and 
those who die suffer only with sporadic complaints, there 
is too much reason to believe that some are buried while 
yet living. The general staff medical officer in one of the 
German states declared, a hundred years ago, "that in his 
opinion one-third of mankind are buried alive." This is 
obviously an exaggeration, but the number is sufficiently 
large to justify the most serious alarm. The Rev. I. G. 
Ouseley, in 1895, estimated "that 2,700 persons, at least, 
in England and Wales, are yearly consigned to a living 



BUKYING ALIVE A FKEQUENT PERIL. 171 

death, the most horrible imaginable." M. Thieurey, Doc- 
tor Eegent of the Faculty of Paris, was of opinion that 
one-third or perhaps one-half of those who die in their 
beds are not actually dead when they are buried. M. 
Gaubert estimated the number of victims to apparent 
death in France at 8,000 a year. Dr. Josat, the Laureate 
of the "Institute/*' declared that a considerable number of 
people refused to visit France, because they feared that 
they might be overtaken by apparent death and precipi- 
tately buried alive. 

I have often been told that the modern practice of em- 
balming made death certain. I admit_it; but those who 
are too poor to pay for this funeral luxury must yet take 
the chances in the old-fashioned way. There is no doubt, 
however, that the number annually put to death by the 
embalmers is sufficiently large to demand attention. An 
investigator of this subject in ]STew York has openly de- 
clared his belief that a considerable number of human be- 
ings are annually killed in America by the embalming 
process. 

There are some conspicuous examples on record. Mdle. 
Rachel, the celebrated actress, fell into a trance at Paris, 
on the 4th of January, 1858. She was reported as dead, 
and the embalmers began their work. She awoke while 
they were thus engaged, but the injuries which they in- 
flicted were so severe that she died ten hours afterwards. 

Cardinal Spinosa, having been declared by his physi- 
cians to be dead, they proceeded to open his chest for the 
purpose of embalming his body. As the lungs were laid 
open the heart began to beat and he returned to conscious- 
ness. He grasped the knife of the surgeon, then fell back 
and died. 

Cardinal Somagalia, in 1837, was seized with a severe 
illness and fell into syncope, which lasted so long that all 
thought him dead. At once preparations were made to 
embalm his body before putrefaction began. As the op- 
erator penetrated his chest the heart wras seen to heat. 
The unfortunate cardinal was able to push away the 
knife, but the lung had been mortally wounded. 

We have all rend the account of Jesus and the daughter 
of Jaime, the ruler of the Synagogue. She had lain at 
the point of death, and that event was act uallv announced. 
The preparations for her interment were already com- 



172 BURYING ALIVE A FREQUENT PERIL. 

menced. There were the minstrels chanting dirges and 
the hired mourners howling and making a noise. As 
Jesus entered and saw the maiden He made the declara- 
tion: "She is not dead, but sleeping." They all laughed 
him to scorn. He sent them out of the apartment and 
then addressed her in Aramaic: "Talitha Kumi," — daugh- 
ter, arise. At once she was aroused, and he delivered her 
in charge to her parents, with the direction to give her 
something to eat. Fortunate, indeed, would our catalep- 
tics and exhausted fever patients be if intelligent persons 
were at hand to set aside the blind judgment of attend- 
ants and call them back thus to normal life. 

The instruction given in medical institutions in rela- 
tion to this matter has been almost culpably insufficient. 
In our own country the ordinary practitioner, when he 
follows the tradition and practice of leading members of 
his profession, considers himself exonerated from blame in 
such matters. He has not the time, the opportunity or 
the inclination to study abnormal phenomena like trance 
and catalepsy; and so sepulture of living persons is likely 
to go on without check under his sanction. Yet the hab- 
its and manners of the people of our time are such as to 
require anxious precaution and carefulness. The number 
actually buried alive, in the judgment of observers, in- 
cluding those whose business it is to conduct interments, 
is great enough to justify alarm. Especially is this the 
case at extraordinary periods of epidemic visitation. But 
under more usual conditions, those of habitual overtask- 
ing the brain and nervous system, overworking generally, 
habitual use of tobacco and other sedatives, excessive 
stimulation and excitement, sexual aberration, anaes- 
thesia and other abnormalities, the occurring of sudden 
death, or rather of death which is~ only apparent, must 
consequently be frequent, and require every precaution 
against peril which can be devised. Before burial in such 
cases there should be detention in a mortuary till death 
was certain. 

Common humanity pleads for this. Human life may 
appear to come to a stop in many cases, and no one can 
say that if time is allowed for this it will not go on again. 
This, even the most learned in medicine, cannot explain 
away or deny. "One cannot be too careful in deciding as 
to life or death," says Hufoland, "and I always advise a 



BURYING ALIVE A FREQUENT PERIL. 173 

delay of the funeral as long as possible, so as to make all 
certain as to death. No wonder, when those who are 
buried alive and who undergo indescribable torture, con- 
demn those who have been dearest to them in life. They 
will have to undergo slow suffocation in furious despair 
while scratching their flesh to pieces, biting their tongues 
and smashing their heads against the narrow houses that 
confine them, and calling to their best friends and cursing 
them as murderers. The dead should not be buried be- 
fore the fourth day; we even have examples that prove 
that eight days or a fortnight is too soon, as there have 
been revivals as late as that. I say," he continues, "every 
one should respect those who only seem to be dead. They 
should be treated gently and kept in a warm bed for thir- 
ty-six hoars." 

Thus far Hufeland, and an array of the noblest men of 
the medical profession are equally as positive in asserting 
the same thing. 

It would seem that this was a legitimate field for legis- 
lative action. In the period, however, that must ensue 
before this will be had, those who are awake to the subject 
should take the matter in hand. Volunteer co-operative 
effort to arouse public interest and to prevent hasty inter- 
ments can bring the desired results about. A body should 
be critically examined by an expert before its interment is 
permitted. Those who have charge of funerals should be 
required to ascertain, before dealing with the remains, 
that death has occurred beyond a doubt. The thought of 
suffocation in a coffin is more terrible than that of torture 
on the rack or burning at the stake. The fearful despair, 
however short the period, is too full of horror to contem- 
plate with calmness. Carelessness in this matter cannot 
be innocent; even ignorance is a mockery, our tears little 
bettor than hypocrisy, when we neglect precautions 
against a fate so terrible — a fate to which every one of us 
is more or less liable. 



Spiritualism in Its Relation to Life. 

A Masterly Discourse Delivered in London, England, 
by Dr. J. M. Peebles. 



"Watchman, what of the night ? . . The morning cometh." 

Inspiration, from inspiro — in-breathing — is universal. 
It oversweeps the epochs of all past ages, and is just as 
fresh and forceful now as in time's earliest morning. God 
is not dead, nor were the doors of Inspiration's temple 
forever closed when Malachi ceased to prophesy, Socrates 
to converse with his divine daimon, and John to see vis- 
ions on rocky Patmos. 

Athanasian sectarists may have turned their backs 
upon the overflowing fountain of inspired truth — upon 
that light which "lighteth every man that cometh into 
the world" — but the light still shines, and like a mighty 
river, widens with the soul's unfolding. 

If Isaiah and Shakspeare, if Carlyle, Emerson, Long- 
fellow, and Lincoln, were not quantitatively, they were 
qualitatively, all equally inspired — inspired as weve the 
prophets of old, because God, the Divine Fountain, the 
Infinite Consciousness, Life and Intelligence, the Source, 
was and is One. Seraphs, angels and spirits of various 
grades of intelligence and purity have ever been the in- 
termediaries in sympathetic touch with us. 

Inspiration warms the nerve centers of the brain, and 
kindles into liveliest activity the fires of the higher moral 
nature. It feeds and nourishes the spiritual; and Spirit- 
ualism is an affirmation, the basic foundation of which is 
demonstration. Spiritualists, through careful, critical 
investigation and persistent research, have become the 
religious positivists of this period. They are the earnest 



SPIRITUALISM'S RELATION TO LIFE. 175 

advocates and philosophers of demonstrated facts, which 
facts, physical, mental, and psychical, verified by con- 
sciousness, intuition and reason, combine to give the very' 
highest degree of certitude. The great souls of song and 
psalm and philosophy that made radiant the past, were 
spirit-inspired men. Spiritualism, as the distinguished 
Alfred R. Wallace writes, is a "scientifically established 
fact." 

PHENOMENA AS SCAFFOLDINGS. 

Jesus of Nazareth, standing upon the summit of moral 
science and real Hebrew Spiritualism, and holding with 
some of his disciples a spiritual seance upon the Mount of 
Transfiguration, talked with the returning spirits of 
Moses and Elias. There is no record of any dead angels 
or spirits. Heaven's doors of mercy and tenderest sym- 
pathy were never shut. John, on the mountainous Isle 
of Patmos, saw and conversed with one of the old proph- 
ets, "a fellow-servant." God is unchangeable. Deific 
laws are unvarying, and lute-like voices of love have vi- 
brated out of the silence through all the agone ages. The 
Hydesville concussions half a century ago or more, were 
not deceptions in a Methodist family; were not curious 
occult inventions, but the discovery — the re-discovery — 
of the bridge consciously connecting the world visible 
with the world invisible. These, or similar phenomena, 
were known to the ancients, as the old cuneiform writings 
and the remotest Akkadian inscriptions now being de- 
ciphered by Orientalists abundantly demonstrate. These 
spirit manifestations were needed in our time as a check 
to materialism. They were means to an end. They were 
scaffoldings in constructing thai magnificent temple of 
truth whose inspired builders, with their divine teachings, 
were ultimately to enlighten and transfigure the world. 

CHANGING ATTITUDES OF SCIENCE. 

Social science, mental science, metaphysical science, 
and especially psychic science, are jusi as much sciences 
as is that university-taughl science called physics, the 
text-books of which, though authoritative to-day, are re- 
pudiated by the next generation. There have been new 
discoveries, widening knowledge and deeper research, ne- 
cessitating frequenl alterations and amendments in the 
classically arranged and tabulated "natural sciences," 



176 SPIRITUALISM'S RELATION TO LIFE. 

The chemistry of my academic years is no longer chem- 
istry. This should induce modesty, a virtue with which 
Haeckel and his materialistic satellites are not too famil- 
iar. Truths, as fixed principles interrelated to cause and 
effect, do not change. It is our conceptions of them that 
change, which changes demand frequent revision. 

SPIRITUAL SCIENCE SUPERIOR TO PHYSICS. 

The original atoms and constituents constituting the 
physical sciences as booked by Humboldt, Tyndall, Hux- 
ley, Lord Kelvin, Virchow, Haeckel, and other observing 
experimentalists, cannot be cognized by the sense percep- 
tions. Scientists cannot get even a glimpse of them with 
the thousand diameter microscope; they cannot measure 
them by any lineal measurement, melt them in crucibles 
of intensest heat, nor weigh them in the most delicately- 
balanced scales. And further, of the origin of these hid- 
den moulding forces they know absolutely nothing. De- 
nying inspiration, and rejecting the spiritual as scientific 
helps, these intellectual giants are of necessity agnostic 
materialists. But why should the results of their inves- 
tigation — why should the physical sciences of which the 
aforenamed distinguished investigators are students — be 
labelled "sciences" in preference to the discovered and 
carefully classified facts of spiritual phenomena? Is 
matter to take precedence over mind? Is physics supe- 
rior to metaphysics? Is the hypothetical atom to be 
more honored than consciousness, intuition, or moral 
reason? Certainly, gravity does not think; electricity 
does not solve mathematical problems; the telegraphic 
wires do not originate the messages they transmit; polar- 
ization does not philosophize, nor does the mad avalanche, 
rushing, thundering down the mountain side, crushing 
alike the infant and the aged, manifest a particle of be- 
nevolence or reason. Metaphysics must necessarily pre- 
cede physics and research; mind and morality should, 
must constitute the corner-stone of all true science and 
spiritual unfoldment. 

JUSTICE TO SPIRITUALISM. 

Telepathy, psychometry, mental therapeutics, and 
these "New Thought" tbeories, worthy of consideration, 
are allied to, and factors of, psychic science, the sub- 
stratum of which is Spiritualism in some of its various 



SPIRITUALISM'S RELATION TO LIFE. 177 

manifestations and demonstrations. What lack of man- 
liness and moral justice, then, is all this vociferous voic- 
ing of '''mental science/' 7 and the "new-thought" flirting, 
without the bare mention of their maternity. Acorns 
may be pardoned for expressing no gratitude to the life- 
imparting oak. Incapable of reasoning, they know no 
better; but liberal thinkers know, or ought to know, that 
Spiritualism, centered in spirit — essential spirit — is the 
Father-Mother fountain of all these higher sciences. It is 
the vitalizing, fruit-laden vine, of which telepathy, psy- 
chometry, "Xew Thought," Mental Science, and theo- 
sophical speculative assertiveness, are the branches — some 
of which, I confess, are sadly distorted, requiring trim- 
ming, training, and very careful watching. 

" Watchman, what of the night ?" 

In this colonizing age of commercialism, this maddened 
rush for pelf, power and luxury, there is a reversion of 
thought and tendencies towards the gross materialism 
of ancient Greece and Eome. Epicurus, in the time of 
Leucippus, a Greek philosopher, denied the immortality 
of the soul, and taught the self-origination of life on 
earth through matter, or rather, the interacting affinities 
and forces in matter. 

Democritus held similar notions. The Roman poet 
Lucretius (born B. C. 95, and ending his life by suicide), 
predicated life, not upon essential, conscious spirit, buc 
upon the vibratory motions, attractions, repulsions, and 
atomic laws inhering in matter. His life is reputed to 
have been very unhappy. Much of the wordy theorizing 
to-day concerning the origin of life is as fruitless as to 
talk of the origin of space. Life being allied to God, the 
Infinite Spirit Presence, had no origin. It is eternal. 
Related to time and mortality, all manifest life on this 
planet must be the resultant of antecedent life. Noth- 
ing can never produce, nor become something. 

DEAD MATTER VERSUS SPIRIT. 

Vital action does not belong to ordinary matter. Force 
cannot spring from non-force, nor life from absolute 
death. As there is organic and inorganic, structureless 
and non-structureless matter, there is also "dead matter,' 1 
as scientists and such distinguished living microscopists 
as Professor Lionel S. Beale, 1'. B. S., F. R. C. P., F. R. 



178 SPIRITUALISM'S RELATION TO LIFE. 

Mchi.S. (vice-president of the Victoria Institute), and 
other illustrious authorities, prove beyond cavil. Profes- 
sor Dewar, in his late address before the British Associa- 
tion for the Advancement of Science, when treating of 
liquid and solid hydrogen; of helium, crypton, xenon, and 
neon, as recently discovered, invisible atmospheric ele- 
ments — remarked that "helium when liquified, would be 
as hard to see as a ghost in the sunshine." He was fur- 
ther reported as sajdng that "certain seeds frozen for a 
hundred hours in liquid air" caused "their protoplasm to 
become inert, but," said he, "on non-living matter the ef- 
fects were much more marked." To contend that there 
is life in matter, or that life permeates matter, is a very 
different thing from saying that matter is alive, con- 
sciously alive. The former is true; the latter is unproven. 

Standing several times in the King's Chamber of the 
Great Pyramid, Egypt, I saw before me a solid block of 
granite weighing several hundred tons. It has stood 
there, according to learned Egyptologists, several thou- 
sand years, stationary and cold. Is it dead or alive? The 
proof that it is dead and unreasoning lies in the fact that 
it did not cut itself out of the Syene quarries, did not 
transport itself across the country, did not lift itself up 
on the fiftieth tier of that great pyramidal pile of stones, 
nor did it architecturally adjust, chisel, and beautifully 
polish itself. It is dead and speechless, dead as atheistic 
spiritism. 

Spirit is life — life in activity; and action implies some- 
thing to act upon. This something may be denominated 
unseen substance, which, impulsed and duly manipulated 
by immutable laws, becomes matter, somewhat as invis- 
ible steam becomes ice, or sunbeams becomes coal strata, 
tangible to the senses. 

UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD. 

Conscious, regal-souled man is not an Eden-fallen dis- 
play of total depravity, not a materialistic mist floating in 
the immensities, not a wailing waif cast up from the non- 
purposeless past by fortuitous combinations of interacting 
atoms and conflicting forces; nor is he a "religious ani- 
mal," as extreme Darwinians have taught; but he is a 
thinking, rational, moral being, whose first conscious 
thought-act is existence; the second is the perception of 



SPIRITUALISM'S RELATION TO LIFE. 1?9 

the existence of others, and the third relates to the acting 
social relations between ourselves and others, which, 
deepening, implies the family, the race, the nation, the in- 
ternational relations, a world-wide brotherhood — and 
still widening and rising in conception, includes in one 
universal brotherhood all those circling, glittering plan- 
ets that dot the unfathomable spaces. 

RELATION OF THE INFINITE TO THE FINITE. 

Exalted and towering as are man's aspirations, he is 
finite, and the finite necessitates the idea of the Infinite. 
No machine can shape itself. Tesla manufactured a 
nicely-shaped talking man, but the thing did not — could 
not reason. 

No unthinking machine can evolve, or construct an- 
other machine; nor can any individualized finite, unaided, 
produce another finite. Not even a blade of grass can 
grow on an iceberg. No egg on a rock can, without 
warmth, hatch a living bird, nor can the new-born babe 
live, clothe itself, and grow without antecedent life, love, 
and intelligence; and the source of that life is the Infinite, 
our Father-Mother — God! 

If it be said by the antagonizing carpist that the "In- 
finite may have had a cause behind it," the say-so sugges- 
tion is of little account. The logical reply is, if any be 
required, that that would render the Infinite finite, in- 
volving as pitiful a contradiction as to state that a circle 
was triangular-shaped, or that a sphere was tetrahedron 
in form. 

There must necessarily exist between the Infinite and 
the finite some such relation as obtains between cause and 
effect — that is, there must invariably be something in the 
cause to which the effecl corresponds. The process of 
creation, or rather manifestation, implies consciousness, 
purpose, adaptation, wisdom, and power, resulting in the 
glory of divine man — a spiritual being. 

The activities seen in structural forms neither create 
nor constitute life. They are the effects of life acting 
upon and through the structures. Conscious life is the 
inducing, compelling power, from which functional activ- 
ities emanate. The life of man. then, is Do! merely men- 
tal or muscular activity, bul rather spiritual vitality, pro- 
ceeding primarily from the higher Divine Source. 



180 SPIRITUALISM'S RELATION TO LIFE. 

ORIGIN" OF LIFE ON EARTH. 

From whence is it? It is from the inflowing Infinite 
Life, and is much more than mere existence. The rock 
and the oyster exist, but they do not really, consciously 
live and aspire to higher states of being. Sensations are 
not reasoning faculties. Tendencies do not create, they 
only excite; neither do functions create organs, but organs 
adapted to use, manifest functional activities and aims. 

There are doubtless units of force, vehicles for con- 
sciousness, in numbers infinitely beyond all mathematical 
calculations, generated in the bosom of the Divine Life, 
and flowing therefrom something as crystal drops emerge 
from an ever-flowing fountain. 

These units, atoms, monads, may be considered as infin- 
itesimal segments of the circle of Being — as semi-de- 
tached entities, sympathetically and spiritually connected 
by the rarest films of vibratory ether to the Infinite Life 
— the energizing, infilling, over-brooding Father-Mother 
Spirit. 

In consonance with the above, Professor Fleming, in a 
recent science monthly, writes of monads and invisible 
corpuscles as fragments chipped from a neutral atom, 
calling them "electrons," or "ions"; and he considers that 
one atom of hydrogen may contain from seven hundred 
to one thousand of these inconceivable, infinitesimal elec- 
trons. If this be science, it is surely getting very nearly 
to spirit. 

These ethereal entities and ions, evidently unlike in 
possibilities, unlike in germinal potentialities, are natu- 
rally adapted to different planes and spheres of etheric ex- 
istence — endless diversity in unity. Nature quite as 
much abhors monotony as a vacuum. 

These units of consciousness are evidently climbing up 
to better conditions, and to more complex structures, to- 
wards the befitting keystone in the arch — perfected man- 
hood! The distance they reach, and the altitude they at- 
tain, depends much, if not altogether, upon the original 
germinal life, or infilling potency. Aspiration is the 
measure of destination. The platform vaporings of 
pseudo-scientists extolling the properties of matter with- 
out any indwelling consciousness or intelligent purpose 
(though they are ever compelled to admit some self-form- 
ing adaptation of means to ends), have become tiresome. 



SPIRITUALISM'S RELATION TO LIFE. 181 

It is not strange that Haeckel's and Buchner's books are 
not read as they once were. Mental icicles are not invit- 
ing to the sensitive touch. It is not pleasant to read, or 
think that one's body, life, and conscious spirit are at 
death to be packed into a coffin, and all to become alike 
grave-yard dirt! 

EFFECTS TRANSCENDING THEIR CAUSES. 

Conversing once with Thomas Carlyle, at Chelsea, he 
characteristically pronounced America "the great maw. 
that was ever hatching out desperate and pestilential 
things." There was something of truth in this. The 
last American-hatched fad to be put as a tag upon Spirit- 
ualism is that "effects transcend their causes We see 

evolution everywhere." Yes, but evolution implies, some- 
thing — some substratum to be evolved from; otherwise, 
we have the silly position of something from nothing. 
Evolution is but half of the circle. Involution in time 
must precede evolution. The sensible old farmer said he 
"could not get water out of his well till there was first 
some in it." If effects transcend their causes, all fathers' 
sons should be Isaac Newtons, or Emersons. A wheel- 
barrow of wood and iron, as a purposed effect, should 
"run" the man that made it. Turtles' eggs, sand- warmed 
and hatched, should produce strong-winged eagles. Au- 
tomobiles, being effects, should build and guide them- 
selves. "Oxygen and hydrogen," says this new-born phi- 
losopher (?) "combine to form water The effect, 

transcending the cause, is unlike the cause." But the 
very word "combine" here used, indicates motion; motion 
necessitates a moving force, and a moving force implies 
life, all of which agencies combined, we are gravely told, 
are not equal to the effect, water. Here is logic run mad I 
This theory squarely dispenses with God, and is therefore 
rankest atheism under the guise of Spiritualism. One 
may be a Spiritist and at the same time an atheist; but 
cannot well be an atheist and a real heartfelt Spiritualist 
because the latter is necessarily reverential, encouraging 
prayer and holiness of life. In Anglo-Saxon the word 
"God" is used in the sense of "good/' and who, morallv 
capable of a religious emotion, does not find both peace 
and profound philosophy in contemplating the Infinite 
Good? 



182 SPIRITUALISM'S RELATION TO LIFE. 

THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. 

Though consciously and intuitively knowing something 
of God (in wholeness), He is incomprehensible. The 
Neo-Platonian Proclus defined God as Causation, and 
Jesus as Spirit — pure, essential, immortal Spirit. And 
this sacred word constitutes the corner-stone of Spiritual- 
ism. The derivatives therefrom are spiritual, spiritual- 
ity, spiritual-mindedness, spirit-communion; and the 
fruits of the "spirit" as expressed by the Apostle, are 
"love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness. 

faith, meekness, temperance If we live in the spirit. 

let us also walk in the spirit." 

The mere conversing with spirit intelligences behind 
the veil does not constitute a Spiritualist. If it did, then 
African Voudous and American Mormons are Spiritual- 
ists; but emphatically they are not. The ancient Assyri- 
ans, as the cuneiform tablets testify, held intercourse with 
the dead. Promiscuous converse in Moses' time with spir- 
its that "peeped and muttered," was called necromancy, 
and forbidden. It may have been demonism from the 
dark chambers of the underworld; if so, the forbidding 
was justifiable. Israel's seers stood on the higher plane 
of inspiration, prophecy, and angelic ministrations. Seers 
and sitters alike should be examples of purity and moral 
excellence. Conscientiousness, fidelity to the principles 
of right, righteousness, cleanliness, and a candid search 
for the truth, should be the actuating motives. In this 
religious attitude largely lies the secret of Mrs. Everitt's 
seances, so wonderful, convincing and spiritually up- 
lifting. 

The same may be said of Mr. George Spriggs' seances, 
both in Australia and Cardiff. His influencing spirits, as 
spirits always should, arranged the conditions. The pho- 
tographer necessarily arranges the conditions for the pic- 
ture. The farmer, with plow and spade, controls and 
fixes the conditions for the ripened harvest; and so spirits, 
dwelling on that more spiritual plane of existence, are 
the most competent, and should be permitted to fix the 
conditions for the manifestations. In Mr. Spriggs' se- 
ances the sitters were selected. They were to attend 
punctually. Each was to take a bath before entering the 
consecrated room; all were to abstain from meat-eating, 
intoxicating drinks, and tobacco, and were to fast from 



SPIKITUALISM'S RELATION TO LIFE. 183 

breakfast time till after the ening sitting. Here was 
purpose, system, and moral integrity. And with these 
conditions, spirits proved the passage of matter through 
matter in both a subdued light and in broad daylight. 
Fruits, flowers, nuts, branches of trees, and bits of rock 
were brought through solid walls in profusion. The spir- 
its, clothing themselves in substances, materialized, and 
in the quietness of twilight walked about in the green- 
house and garden. Lately I witnessed very similar mani- 
festations in the elegant residence of Mr. Thomas W. 
Stanford (Melbourne), brother of the originator and 
founder of the Stanford University in California, and the 
reputed richest one in the world. The medium was Mr. 
C. Bailey, and his controlling intelligences always opened 
the sittings with prayer. All such orderly, religious se- 
ances tend to lead the researchers from the physical up to 
the psychical; to impress the mind with the sublime 
thought of immortality; to arouse the inner conscience, to 
quicken the spiritual faculties, to reform vicious habits, 
and attune the soul to the harmonies of infinite love and 
perfection. 

THE SPIRITUAL AND THE CHRIST-LIFE. 

As aforesaid, Spiritualism is of God, and therefore di- 
vine. It was in Jordan's waters that Jesus clairvoyantly 
saw the "spirit," descending like a dove, a beautiful sym- 
bol of his mission. Previous to this heavenly baptism, 
he was Jesus, the Galilean carpenter, traveling, according 
to Hafed and Talmudian writers, in Egypt and other Ori- 
ental lands; but now he was Jesus Christ — the anointed, 
the divinely illumined. There was no miracle in this. It 
was natural to spiritual law. Every Spiritualist should 
be baptized from the Christ-heavens, becoming a Christ 
now. "As many," said the Apostle, "as have been bap- 
tized into Christ, have put on Christ." Let "Christ be 
formed in you." And again, the Apostle said, "Christ 
liveth in me." Christ should live in every one. 

Afire with the Christ-spirit, Jesus declared that "be- 
liever.- in Him" should do the work- thai Ee did, and 
"even greater works." Be chose the apostles, qoI because 
of their scholarship, but because of their susceptibility to 
spirit influences. Paul never saw Jesus Christ in the 
flesh, and yet he was more the founder of this now-a-day 



184 SPIRITUALISM'S RELATION TO LIFE. 

Christianity than Christ. A Jew by birth, a Pharisee by 
education, he was to the end more of a spiritist than a 
Christ-illumined Spiritualist. Though stricken down by 
spirit power on his way to Damascus, and though caught 
in vision up to the "third heaven," he confessed in his 
writings that he was the "chief of sinners," and had not 
yet "attained." His real name, as traced in the Talmud 
by the late learned Dr. Wise, president of the Hebrew 
College of Cincinnati, Ohio, was Acher. Afterwards he 
was called Saul, and still later Paul. Changing the name 
when traveling was common in that period. Plato's real 
name was Aristokles. Paul preached Christ as the loftiest 
spiritual altitude to be in his time attained. Paul, being 
confessedly given to "diplomacy" — another word for du- 
plicity — wrote of "salvation by faith," and said that 
"without the shedding of blood there was no remission of 
sins." Evolution was doing its work, however, in the 
apostolic period; and when more highly inspired, he ex- 
horted the Jewish believers to leave their "first prin- 
ciples," their Pharisaic religious notions, and "go on unto 
perfection." And again he wrote: "Being reconciled, we 
are saved by His (Christ's) life." Mark this; it was and 
is the life — the life of justice and mercy, the life of purity 
and love — love inspired by faith, and guided by wisdom, 
that saves. 

The parabolic style o A writing was common in the early 
days of Christianity. When Paul wrote that "this rock 
was Christ," he had no reference to a granite boulder. 
And when Jesus said, "Except ye eat my flesh and drink 
my blood there is no life in you," he did not intend to en- 
courage cannibalism. This was the symbolism of Ori- 
ental imagery. The real meaning was, "Except ye par- 
take of my spiritual doctrines, and drink or assimilate 
these spiritual teachings, there is no life in you, because it 
is 'the spirit that giveth life.' " The spiritual Christian- 
ity of Jesus Chrst, and the spiritual illumination of Gau- 
tama Buddha, and true Spiritualism, are all in perfect ac- 
cord; the essential thought being that it is not belief, not 
creed, but character that saves. 

It is a stock phrase among many spiritists that "Knowl- 
edge is the world's savior." Knowledge is not the world's 
savior, neither is ignorance. Knowledge, unless guided 
by a high moral motive, is dangerous. The most know- 



SPIRITUALISM'S RELATION TO LIFE. 185 

ing men are the most crafty in crime. Forgers are excel- 
lent penmen. Counterfeiters are often fine mechanics. 
Bank defaulters may be expert accountants. 

Dr. Webster, professor of Chemistry and the Natural 
Sciences in Harvard University, America, owing Dr. 
Parkman a debt that he could not cancel, murdered him 
in the University building, and then employed his knowl- 
edge — his chemical skill in acids and heat — to conceal the 
terrible crime. He was tried, convicted, and executed, 
and Andrew Jackson Davis clairvoyantly watched the pro- 
cess of his dying, and his entrance into the world of spir- 
its — not the spiritual world, or summerland world of love 
and harmony, but the Tartarean world of spirits. 

Death, the act of separating the material from the spir- 
itual, settles no final destiny. Jesus preached to Hades- 
imprisoned spirits, which preaching implied repentance 
and reformation. "When in Palestine a number of years 
ago, I plucked and ate delicious grapes in hell, the Valley 
of Hinnom, Gehenna, that "hell-fire" (St. Mark ix:47) 
where the "worm was never to die, nor the fire to be 
quenched." Progression spans all worlds, visible and in- 
visible. Returning spirits confirm and exemplify this 
gospel — a gospel, not so much of hope, as of knowledge. 

But the future out of mind, it is infinitely better to re- 
form to-day — better to do right and live right now. Duty 
was the keystone to the moral philosophy of the great 
German philosopher, Fichte. To his students he said: 
"Duty is the foundation of a successful life." In all men- 
tal equipments, moral qualities should be put forward as 
guiding principles. There are not two worlds, only two 
aspects of the one world, visible and invisible. It is but 
a filmy mist that separates them. The clairvoyant eye 
can pierce it, and the clairaudient ear, like John's on Pai- 
mos, can hear the vibratory voices of the other-world in- 
telligences. We may and should live the spiritual — the 
heavenly — lit'.' now, as a foretaste of those evergreen 
shores and temples of truth, that over there, await tin- 
truly good. 

Pure and undefiled religion is a divine soul emotion, in- 
spiring reverence for God and love to man. And relig- 
ions Spiritualism, in contrast to materialism, or atheistic 
side-show spiritism, is a life, emphatically a life of love. 

guided by wisdom, a life of eoiiMciated self-sacriliee for 



186 SPIRITUALISM'S RELATION" TO LIFE. 

that truth which makes the soul free indeed, and was 
never making such rapid strides as now. Its progress is 
co-extensive with the progress of English-speaking na- 
tions. It is not noisy and boasting. Comparatively 
quiet and incisive, it is leavening the great lump of priest- 
ly ecclesiasticism. And in a few centuries, as the English 
language will be the cultured international language of 
the world, so will Spiritualism be the religion of the 
world, chanting the triumphant anthem: 

Death, where is thy sting, 
grave, where is thy victory?" 

SPIRITUALISM AND THE AFTER LIFE. 

Death, to the pure in heart, is but going one step 
higher to clasp the shining hands of the loved ones gone 
before; or it may be compared to the rose, that climbs up 
the garden wall to bloom on the other side. It is not so 
much the mission of Spiritualism to teach men how to 
die, as how to now live the strenuous, manly life of the 
just. As we come this way to tarry in mortality but 
once, it becomes us to make every day one of moral im- 
provement and self-mastery. Our angel-teachers plead 
with us not to miserly Hve for self, for gain; nor to grovel 
underground like moles; but to move up out of the cere- 
bellum along the pathway of intellect to the coronal brain 
region — the soul's parlors, where come angel guests to 
talk in tenderest tones of love. 

Mr. Astor, one of New York's great multi-millionaires, 
influencing a sensitive, wrote thus: "I am not happy; bet- 
ter for me that I had been an orphan and begged for 
bread in the streets than to have been the hoarding, 
grasping man I was, treasuring up that which I could not 
take with me to this new state of being. Could I live my 
earthly life over again, I should pursue a very different 
course. Pray for me." Emerson wisely said in his "Con- 
duct of Life," that "he who gathers too much of the 
earthly, in the very act loses an equal amount of the 
spiritual." 

The overbrooding spiritual spheres are doubtless the 
spheres of inspiration and impressional causes; and Spir- 
itualism, which so marvelously materialized to the sense- 
perceptions in 1848, at Hydesville, was begotten in the 
heavens. So considered, small matters are, in results, 



SPIRITUALISM'S RELATION TO LIFE. 187 

often the mightiest. A babe, in. a Bethlehem manger, 
three centuries later shook imperial Rome to its founda- 
tions. A tiny apple-stem broke and showed to Newton 
the law that binds in the one the starry universe; a trem- 
ulous tendon in a frog's foot gave birth to galvanism; a 
kite revealed the lightning's powerful armament; in a bit 
of amber lay hidden the mighty force of electricity; tiny 
coral insects lifted up islands from the ocean; scattering, 
floating weeds told Columbus of a world afar in the West; 
and a few gentle tappings some fifty years ago in a mid- 
night hour at a Hydesville farm-house, told of a peopled 
world unseen, and bridged the distance, hope merging 
into knowledge, and faith into fruition. 

Soon the world felt the quickening force. Reforms 
were conceived in the heavens and mapped out to be ma- 
terialized on earth. William Lloyd Garrison, the anti- 
slavery agitator, and an avowed Spiritualist, rose from 
pacing the floors of a Baltimore prison to see ere long- 
slavery die and himself crowned with a nation's honor. 

A few years ago Hudson Tuttle, writer and author, took 
me in his carriage to see the old brick Edison homestead, 
where young Edison, the world-famous inventor, attended 
his first spiritual seances. He is still impressionable and 
inspirational. 

In 1863 the martyred Abraham Lincoln attended sev- 
eral spiritual seances at the house of Mr. Laurie, Wash- 
ington, D. D. This gentleman, whom I well knew, was a 
government employe in the post office department, and 
Mrs. Miller, his daughter, was a superior medium, whose 
seances, S. P. Kase, called the "railroad king," the Rev. 
John Pierpont, a Unitarian preacher and poet, the Hon. 
D. E. Somes, ex-Congressman, General N. P. Banks, Ma- 
jor Chorpening, and Abraham Lincoln, with other distin- 
guished personages, quietly attended. 

Hudson Tuttle, writing in the Banner of Light, March 
7, 1891, says: "Mrs. Nettie Colburn Maynard was con- 
stantly consulted by President Lincoln, and the commu- 
nications he received through her were of the most aston- 
ishing character. The result of battles was foretold be- 
fore the telegraphic dispatches, and on several occasions 
advice was given and accepted, which, acted on, proved of 

momentous consequence." 

It was well known in CJoverninent circles that Lincoln 



188 SPIKITUALISM'S KELATIOH TO LIFE. 

frequently consulted the spirits through Colchester, Fos- 
ter, and other sensitives, and it was quite generally under- 
stood that it was through messages from the ascended 
fathers of the Kepublic that Lincoln was induced to sign 
the proclamation that struck the shackles from four mill- 
ions of human beings. 

The Stanford University of California, reported to be 
the richest (including its lands and estates) in the world, 
owes its origin to Spiritualism. The son of Senator Stan- 
ford, an ex-Governor of California, while touring in 
Europe, gathering relics and costly curios, passed away by 
a fever attack, while in Italy, to a higher life. He was 
an only child, sixteen, and full of promise. 

"The Stanford family was a Spiritualistic family," as 
Thomas W. Stanford remarked to me while attending 
one of his seances, just before I left Australia. This gen- 
tleman was for many years the American Vice-Consul in 
Melbourne, and his name, because of munificent contribu- 
tions, is chiseled on the front of the Stanford University 
Library in California. These cultuied, free-thought 
Stanfords, in this trying affliction, finding no consolation 
in church dogmas, consulted trance and clairvoyant sen- 
sitives. And, while considering the subject of construct- 
ing a mausoleum to the memory of their son, he, from 
spirit life, suggested that the most satisfactory monument 
to him would be the erection of an unsectarian educa- 
tional institution. This desire of their spirit-risen son 
ulti mated in that magnificent university which has some 
two thousand students in attendance. It is the purpose, 
so I am credibly informed, that when these landed estates 
are sold and the income put into this institution, there 
shall be no tuitional charges to students. Here, then, is 
that Spiritualism, which is of God, made practicable, in 
educating the young of both sexes on an equal footing; 
and non-sectarian education in the line of evolution must 
be the great crowning work of this twentieth century. 

"Lo ! I see long blissful ages, 

When these Mammon days are done, 

Stretching forward in the distance, 
Towards a never-setting sun." 

Spiritualism not only demonstrates a future existence 
not only teaches the certainty of suffering in all worlds 



SPIRITUALISM'S RELATION TO LIFE. 189 

for wrong-doing, not only encourages invention, art, sci- 
ence, exploration, and all sanitary enterprises, not only 
shows memory to be the "recording angel/' and self-de- 
nial, nobleness of purpose, purity of life and sweet spirit- 
uality to be the ascending steps to heaven, but it strikes the 
chains from millions of slaves and builds unsectarian uni- 
versities. These angel ministries ever appeal to the silent, 
persuasive, and most powerful incentives to a better life. 
And though no subtile chemistry can impart a more deli- 
cate odor to the rose, though no lapidary can burnish the 
stars, nor rhetorician's art add to the moral beauty and 
dignity of a true altruistic life, yet everyone can cultivate 
that loving-kindness which disarms resentment, that pa- 
tience which endures suffering, that gentleness which 
neutralizes acidity of temper, that forgiveness which ob- 
literates personal animosities, that sweetness of disposi- 
tion which adds lustre to all the heavenly graces, that 
consciousness of right which inspires justice, and that 
tender charity which, combined with the other virtues 
that angel messages inspire, make the harmonial man — 
Heaven on earth. 

The golden age lies onward, not behind. 
The pathway through the past has led us up; 
The pathway through the future will lead on 
And higher. We are rising from the beast 
Unto Christ and human brotherhood.*' 



Man and His Bodies. 



A Lecture Delivered Before a Chicago Audience, by 

C. W. Leadbeater, the Great Psychic, 

of London, Eng. 



You will see from the list that we have in this course 
of lectures a considerable variety of subjects before us — 
reincarnation, clairvoyance, telepathy and mind-cure 
among others. What I wish to offer you is our theo- 
sophical explanation of these subjects, for we have in 
Theosophy a great philosophy which attempts to account 
for all that we see about us. We are perfectly well aware 
that there are many subjects, and many points in connec- 
tion with almost any of the deeper subjects, which lie far 
beyond man's comprehension at the stage to which his in- 
tellect is at present evolved; but still we have in Theos- 
ophy an immense body of knowledge, a system which 
seems to us by far the most rational system to account for 
the world as we find it, to show how it came to be what it 
is, and how man came to be what he is, and also to give us 
a clear prevision of what he will be in the future, to show 
what this great scheme intends for him and for the sys- 
tem to which he belongs. If all this be so, Theosophy 
must have some reasonable answer to offer to the various 
questions which arise in every thinking mind, and have 
some solution to suggest for the great problems of life. 
It is not to be expected that it shall be able to explain 
everything in detail, but it ought to have a rational hy- 
pothesis to put forward with regard to all carefully ob- 
served facts. We ought to have a coherent scheme; we 
believe that we have, and therefore we wish to put be- 
fore you the point of view which it gives us with regard 
to the various subjects in our programme. 



MAX AND HIS BODIES. 191 

Our subject for to-night, that of Man and His Bodies, 
is one the comprehension of which is necessary before any 
of our later theosophical explanations can be understood. 
I shall try to make it as simple as possible, and to divest it 
of technical terms as far as I can. 

Broadly speaking, our theory of this world, and of the 
solar system of which it forms a part, is that there is 
much more in them than there is usually supposed to be 
— that they extend much farther than is commonly 
thought, not outward, but inward. Let me explain this. 
The earth is considered as a physical body, and we know 
that it contains matter in certain conditions, solid, liquid 
and gaseous; and, in addition to these, science recognizes 
something which it calls ether, which interpenetrates 
other matter and extends far beyond it. We go a great 
deal farther than this, and hold that many far finer sub- 
divisions of matter exist, which may be observed and ex- 
amined by the occult student. When I speak to you of 
clairvoyance I hope to explain what the powers are by 
means of which such observations can be made; but for 
the moment I must simply postulate these powers with- 
out explaining them. I must simply say that man has 
within him undeveloped senses by means of which he is 
able to appreciate matter much more finely subdivided 
than that which our ordinary senses enable us to grasp; 
but I cannot make clear to you the nature of those finer 
senses until I have described the higher bodies of man. 
It is one of the difficulties of the theosophical lecturer 
that the whole of this system is so closely interrelated, 
and it all dovetails together so beautifully, that it is fre- 
quently impossible to explain fully any one part of it 
without touching upon nearly all the rest, and no one can 
ever tell how strong is the evidence for any one part of it 
until he thoroughly knows the whole of it. 

EXISTENCE OF FIXER ETHERS. 

We find, then, that besides the matter which we can see 
about us, and besides the matter which we do not see, but 
of who.-c presence science assures as (the various gases 
and the ether, I'm- example) there exisl many other still 

liner kinds of matter, which can only he Bees by means 
of these finer senses. We put this before yon as a hy- 
pothesis, for your consideration and examination, hut it 
is only fair to tell you that to us it is much more than a 



192 MAN AND HIS BODIES. 

hypothesis — that to many of us it is a certainty based 
upon our own individual observations. We have worked 
for many years at these studies; I myself have been a 
member of the Theosophical Society for about twenty 
years, and when a man has devoted practically his whole 
time for twenty years to a single subject, he begins to 
know something about it, and to have its broad principles 
very clearly and definitely in his mind. It is therefore 
quite true that with regard to many of these subjects 
which will seem to you new and strange, I am in a some- 
what different position, for to me all these things are mat- 
ters of course — in many cases matters of daily experience. 
Many of us know from our own experiments that the 
broad outlines of this theosophical system are true, but 
we do not ask you to believe this because we do, but only 
to accept our testimony as you would any other evidence, 
and take it into account. We are not seeking for con- 
verts, we are not trying to induce people to believe what 
we say; we are simply putting before them a system of 
study, in the hope that they may be sufficiently interested 
to take it up and follow it further for themselves. There 
is an immense literature upon these subjects, so that any 
one who will may readily study further, and in that way 
can make up his mind as to the truth of the teaching. 
If after reading, he decides that he prefers other hypoth- 
eses, there is no harm done; he has simply learnt some- 
thing of the tenets of a body of men with whom as yet he 
does not find himself able to agree. We have sufficient 
faith in our facts to believe that he will agree with us one 
day, that as he learns more in future lives, he will in time 
come round to our point of view. 

ULTIMATE PHYSICAL ATOMS. 
So, I say that as far as we are concerned, we know that 
these finer kinds of matter exist, and that there are whole 
worlds composed of them, which we call the higher planes 
of Nature. Remember that I am still speaking of the 
same matter which you all know; we recognize only one 
matter, though it may be in different conditions. We 
find that this ether of which science speaks is not a sub- 
stance differing from all other substances, but rather a 
condition of matter; just as you may have hydrogen in its 
normal gaseous condition, or under sufficient pressure 
and with the proper temperature you may have it lique- 



MAN AND HIS BODIES. 193 

fled, or even solidified, so we find that its condition may 
be changed in the opposite direction, and we may have it 
in a finer state, which we call the etheric. So that for us 
ether is not a separate substance, but a condition of any 
kind of substance, so that in that etheric condition we 
might have gold or silver, lithium or platinum, or any of 
the so-called elements. We do not apply the name of ele- 
ments to these seventy substances, because we find that 
they are all capable of further subdivision. That is an 
idea which meets with some support in the scientific 
world; as long ago as 1887 Sir William Crookes pro- 
pounded this theory before the Royal Institution of Lon- 
don, suggesting that all known elements might very well 
be variations of one, that they might all be reduced to an 
original substance, to which he gave the name of protyle. 
The truth, as seen by occult students, goes a little further 
even than that, for instead of finding at the back of ev- 
erything a homogeneous substance, we find that there is 
such a thing as a physical atom. A chemist speaks of 
atoms of any of his elements, but really these may all be 
further subdivided, broken up into the true atoms, of 
which they are simply different arrangements. For ex- 
ample, in what the chemist calls an atom of hydrogen 
there are really eighteen of the ultimate physical atoms, 
and in the other chemical atoms there are differing num- 
bers, agreeing very nearly (but not exactly) in their pro- 
portions with the respective specific gravities of the ele- 
ments. 

These ultimate physical atoms are found to be all alike, 
and to pervade all space of which we know anything. 
They are inconceivably minute. You may acquire some 
idea of what they must be if you try to imagine the pic- 
ture suggested by an eminent scientist of London, who 
said: "Suppose we were able to magnify a drop of water 
to the size of the earth, that is to say, to magnify it till it 
was eight thousand miles in diameter, the atoms of which 
ii is composed, when magnified in that proportion, would 
certainly be smaller than a cricket-ball, and certainly 
larger than a Bmal] shot/' Ee could ool tell us more 
closely than that; bul jusl think of what that implies- of 
the countless millions upon million.- which must go to 
make up thai drop of water! Those atoms are Ear beyond 
the reach of the most powerful microscope cut made, or 



194 MAN AND HIS BODIES. 

ever likely to be made; but they can nevertheless be ob- 
served by means of the developed senses of man. Occult 
science approaches its problems from a different point of 
view; instead of developing and improving its instru- 
ments, as modern science has been so wonderfully suc- 
cessful in doing, it goes to work to develop the observer. 
It develops within the man other and finer faculties by 
means of which he is able to perceive these exceedingly 
minute objects, and thus it penetrates further into the 
heart of Nature than any instrument can ever do. Do 
not imagine that there is anything supernatural or un- 
canny about these higher faculties; they are simply 
straightforward developments of powers which man al- 
ready possesses, and will come to every one in due course, 
though some people have taken special trouble to develop 
them now in advance of the rest. 

SUBDIVISION OF ULTIMATE ATOMS. 

There are, then, ultimate pnysical atoms which can be 
observed and examined. When we reach that stage, is 
there any further possibility, can our observation take us 
any further still? We find that it can. The word atom 
is derived from the Greek atomes, meaning that which 
cannot be cut, or further subdivided. But that term is 
not strictly applicable, for these physical atoms can be 
divided; but when they are, the result is no longer phys- 
ical matter in the ordinary sense of the word. Physical 
matter always expands by heat and contracts by cold; but 
when we break up the atom we have a type of matter 
which is totally unaffected by any heat or cold that we 
can produce. It seems probable that solar temperatures 
would affect even this finely subdivided matter, but cer- 
tainly none of ours do. But this higher matter is exceed- 
ingly interesting, and we find that there is a whole world 
composed of it existing all round us, interpenetrating all 
matter that we know — lying all about us, in the atmos- 
phere, within our own bodies, within all solid objects. 
Just as science tells us that ether interpenetrates all ob- 
jects, ourselves included, so does this still finer matter in- 
terpenetrate the ether in turn. 

There are several stages of this subdivision of matter, 
and we speak of these stages as the planes of Nature, by 
which we mean simply divisions of matter according to its 



MAX AND HIS BODIES. 195 

degree of density. All the matter which you know we 
should describe as that of the physical plane, including 
even the ether. Beyond that we come to another class — 
the same matter still, remember, only more finely subdi- 
vided, and we call this astral matter. This is a name 
which was given to it by the medieval alchemists, who 
were well aware of its existence. Modern science has no 
name for it yet, but it probably soon will have, for its re- 
searches are drawing nearer and nearer to this finer mat- 
ter every day. We may carry on this process of subdivid- 
ing and refining to another stage, and find another condi- 
tion of matter higher still; and to that we have given the 
name of mental matter, because it is found that what is 
called the mind of man is composed of this type of mat- 
ter. That sounds a startling statement, no doubt, but 
neverthless it is a true one, based on definite experiment 
on scientific lines. 

Still more of these subdivisions rise one above another, 
but for the moment I need not trouble you with more 
than these three — the physical, the astral and the mental. 
Do not be deceived by the use of that word "above." Do 
not think for a moment of our investigation as passing 
away from earth. To rise higher in this investigation 
means simply to withdraw more and more into the self, 
so as to be able to sense finer and finer stages of matter, 
but all these stages are existing about us here and now 
and all the time, simply interpenetrating one another, 
just as the air or gas in aerated water interpenetrates the 
liquid. Just so, in and amongst all physical particles ex- 
ist astral particles, and among the astral particles exist 
the mental in turn. 

THE CONSTITUTION OF MAX. 

Now, with that idea in view, let us turn to the consti- 
tution of man. The ordinary man thinks of himself as 
consisting of a body certainly, and possibly a soul, though 
he usually speaks of himself a- possessing this latter, and 
being responsible for saving it, as though it were some 
kind of pel animal which he kept, or something attached 
to him ami floating above him. like a captive balloon. 
Now we should gay thai he Is entirely wrong in supposing 
thai he has a soul, bul he would be quite righl if he said 
that he was a soul. Tim ordinary statement is a comical 



196 MAN AND HIS BODIES. 

inversion of the fact; for the truth is that man is a soul, 
and has a body, which is simply one of the vestments that 
he puts on. You all know that this is so, if you think of 
it. I am quite aware of the theory that nothing exists 
but matter, and that all the thoughts and aspirations of 
man are nothing but chemical reactions among the constit- 
uent particles of the grey matter of his brain, but as there 
are thousands of facts for which this theory does not ac- 
count, I think we may dismiss it in favor of a more ra- 
tional one. 

There are hundreds of cases on record in which a man 
has gone away from his physical body in trance or under 
the influence of anesthetics, or even in ordinary sleep; and 
it is found that under such circumstances, when he is far 
away from his physical brain, with its grey matter and its 
chemical action, he can still think and observe and re- 
member just as when he has his physical vehicle in use. 
It is therefore very evident that man is not the body, 
since he can exist apart from it; the body is only an in- 
strument which he uses for his own purposes. What 
those purposes are we will consider next week when I 
have to speak of reincarnation. Some may ask whether 
we have any definite proof outside our own observations 
as to this crucial fact that man can live without his body. 
Certainly there is a great deal of proof for any one who 
cares to take the trouble to look for it. Read the pro- 
ceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, and you 
will see what it has done in this line — how a committee of 
scientific men has again and again been satisfied with re- 
gard to the appearance of the double at a distance from 
where his physical body was at the time. It is quite defi- 
nitely known to all investigators that a man may under 
certain circumstances travel away from his body, see what 
is taking place at a distance, and then return and reani- 
mate his body, and tell where he has been and what he 
has seen and done. In some of my own books you will 
find a number of instances collected; but you will find 
plenty outside of regular theosophical literature also. 
Lookat Mr. Stead's "Real Ghost Stories," or Mr. Robert 
Dale Owen's "Footfalls on the Boundary of the Unseen 
World," or his "Debatable Land"; you will find many ex- 
amples, with the fullest possible authentication. The or- 
dinary materialistic theory does not explain these occur- 



MAN AND HIS BODIES. 197 

rences at all, and because it cannot explain them, it usu- 
ally denies them, and declares that they do not happen — 
which is disingenuous, for very little examination proves 
conclusively that they happen constantly. 

PNEUMA AND PSYCHE. 

Since these things happen, how do they happen? 
Their explanation is intimately connected with our sub- 
ject, for the first step towards a comprehension of them is 
to realize that man is a soul, and has not one body only, 
but several. This is not a new idea — at least, it cannot 
be new to any religious man, for St. Paul speaks of two of 
them in I. Cor. xv. — a natural body and a spiritual body. 
Now what does he mean by that? I am afraid many 
good people read these things and attach no particular 
meaning to them. They read, for example, of a soul and 
a spirit in St. Paul's writings, and because we in these 
days are so ignorant of psychology as to confuse these 
terms, they imagine that St. Paul was equally ignorant, 
and was employing them as synonyms. He uses two 
entirely distinct Greek words, pneuma, spirit, and psyche, 
soul, and he attaches precisely the same meaning to each 
of them as any other educated gentleman of his period 
did. If you want to grasp the exact shades of that mean- 
ing, you must not trust to the blank ignorance of the 
modern religious enthusiast, but study the contempora- 
neous philosophy. So when St. Paul speaks of a nati./al 
body and a spiritual body he does not mean the same 
thing, but two entirely different things, just as with the 
soul and the spirit. Most people would probably admit 
that, but they think vaguely that this spiritual body is 
something of which we know nothing — some vehicle as- 
sumed by man after his death. That is not so; there is 
no necessity to assume that, and it is wholly unnatural. 
Truly the man has another body besides the physical, but 
he has it now and all the time. Every one of us possesses 
a spiritual body as well as a natural body; or, to put it 
more accural civ, each man is a spirit encased in a soul, 
and, being thus individualized, he possesses various ve- 
hicles, the natural or physical body, and two others, 
which St. Paul puts together under the name of a spirit- 
ual body, though in our study we usually separate them. 
and call them respectively the astral body and the mental 
body. 



198 MAN AND HIS BODIES. 

Our theory of man and of his origin is that he is essen- 
tially a spirit, a spark of the Divine Fire. That spark is 
individualized, marked off as it were, from the great 
ocean of the Godhead by something which we may call a 
soul — or rather, when it is so individualized, we call it a 
soul. That which separates him we usually call the 
causal body, but we may leave that aside for the present, 
and deal only with his lower vehicles, for that causal 
body is unchanging, except that it gradually evolves, 
whereas the mental, astral and physical are taken afresh 
for each incarnation. 

THEOEY OF VIBEATIONS. 

Why should he take upon himself these various bodies? 
it may be asked. Because this is the method of evolution 
appointed for him — that he shall gain experience through 
learning to respond to impacts from without. He takes 
on these lower bodies in order that he may be able to re- 
ceive and respond to vibrations of stronger, coarser type 
than any which could be found on his own higher plane. 
For some students, this whole subject is most easily com- 
prehended by considering it along this line of vibrations. 

Think of it thus: Every impression which reaches us 
from without, no matter what it is, comes to us as a vi- 
bration. We see by means of the waves in the ether, we 
hear by means of waves in the air. What then is con- 
veyed to us by the vibrations of that finer type of matter 
of which I have been speaking, and how are we able to re- 
ceive them? The answer is simple, but far-reaching. By 
their means we are able to perceive the higher part of our 
world, which is usually hidden from us and we may learn 
to appreciate them by means of the finer matter which 
exists in us — through the senses of these finer bodies, in 
fact. 

Here I am entering a domain untouched as yet by ordi- 
nary science, but I am saying nothing which is in any 
way contradictory to that science. You may put this 
aside as unproven, but you cannot say that it is unreason- 
able or unscientific. Science recognizes vast numbers of 
possible vibrations, and knows that out of all these our 
physical senses can respond to only a very few. Yet 
through those few we have learnt all that we know so far, 
and it is obvious that if we can learn to use more of these 



MAN AND HIS BODIES. 199 

waves from without, we shall receive more information. 
Now that is precisely what a clairvoyant does — he receives 
information about a world which we ordinarily do not 
see; and he receives it by means of vibrations which im- 
pinge upon his higher vehicles. So a clairvoyant is a 
man who has learnt to focus his consciousness in his 
higher bodies at will. That at least is what a thoroughly 
trained clairvoyant could do, but there are many bearing 
that name whose knowledge and power are very limited. 
There is very much more than this to be said about clair- 
voyance, but I hope to deal with that subject later in my 
series of lectures. 

Science also quite recognizes how partial our vision is, 
and how a slight alteration in our power to respond to 
these waves from without would change for us the whole 
appearance of the world. Once Sir William Crookes 
gave a very good example of that. He explained how if, 
instead of seeing by rays of light, we saw by electrical rays, 
the whole of our surroundings would seem totally differ- 
ent. One point was that in that case the air about us 
would seem perfectly opaque, because air is not a con- 
ductor of electrical vibrations, while a wire or an iron bar 
would be a hole through which we could see, because 
these substances are good conductors for our rays! No 
wonder, therefore, that when we learn to see by an en- 
tirely new set of waves in astral matter, we should find 
quite a different world opening to our gaze. One change 
would be that we should find ourselves then able to see 
astral matter in other men — to look at their astral bodies 
instead of their physical vehicles only. I have just 
written a book upon this very subject of the higher 
bodies of man, which will be illustrated with colored pic- 
tures, drawn for me by one who himself was able to see 
these bodies, and as soon as that is published you will be 
able to form some idea as to how these things appear to 
the sight of the clairvoyant; and I think you will find it 
a very interesting study. 

ASTRAL AND MENTAL BODIES. 
The astral body is especially the vehicle of passion, 
emotion and desire in man. bo thai when a Budden wave 
of sonic greal emotion sweeps over a man. it Bhows itself 
by exceedingly violent vibrations of the astral matter. 
Suppose thai with astral sight you were watching a man. 



200 MAN AND HIS BODIES. 

and that man should unfortunately lose his temper. In- 
stead of seeing the physical expression of annoyance, you 
would see a very remarkable change in his astral body. 
The whole vehicle would be pulsating with a violent vi- 
bration, and since color is only a certain rate of vibration, 
this sudden change would involve also a change in the 
color of the astral body as well. When we speak of the 
surging of passion, we are nearer the truth than we think, 
for that is exactly the appearance produced. As the man 
cools down, his astral body will resume its usual color 
and appearance, yet a slight permanent trace is percept- 
ible to the trained eye. The same thing is true of all 
other emotions, good or bad. If a man feels a great rush 
of devotional emotion, or of intense affection, each of 
these will at once manifest itself byits appropriate change 
in the astral body, and each would leave its slight perma- 
nent trace upon the dead man's character. 

When we come to deal with that other vehicle of still 
finer matter which we call the mental body, we find that 
that also vibrates, but in response to quite a different set 
of impressions. No emotion under any circumstances 
ought to affect it in the least, for this is not the home of 
the passions or emotions, but of thought. It is not a new 
idea to speak of vibration in connection with thought. 
All experiments in telepathy and thought transference 
depend upon this fact that every thought creates a vibra- 
tion, and that this can be conveyed along a line of mental 
particles, and will excite a similar vibration in the men- 
tal body of another man. There may still be those who 
do not believe in telepathy, for it is hard to find the lim- 
its of human obstinacy; but this is a matter upon which 
any one may so easily convince himself that unbelief sim- 
ply means indifference to the question. A man may re- 
main ignorant if he will, but when he has wilfully chosen 
that position he has no right to deny the knowledge of 
those who have taken more trouble than he has. 

Here, then, are two of the bodies of man — the astral 
body, which is the vehicle of his sensations, passions and 
emotions, and the mental body, which is the medium of 
his thought. But each of these has its possibilities of de- 
velopment, for at each level there are various types of 
matter. A man may have a comparatively gross astral 
body, which answers very readily to low, undesirable vi- 



MAN -AND HIS BODIES. 201 

brations, and by carefully working at it and learning to 
control it, he may gradually change its composition very 
considerably, until it becomes capable of responding to 
waves of emotion of a much better type. In the mental 
body he may have a very fine type of mental matter, or a 
somewhat grosser mental matter; and upon that it will 
depend whether good and high thoughts come naturally 
and easily to him or the reverse. But this also is in his 
own power, for he can alter it if he will. And it is not 
only during his earth life that this will make a great dif- 
ference to him and to his evolution, but also in the life 
after death. I shall not speak of that subject now, be- 
cause we shall have to devote one or two lectures to the 
subject later on, but at least I may say this much. When 
the man puts off his physical body he still retains these 
others, the astral and the mental, and upon their condi- 
tion depends much of his happiness in the new world 
(which yet is part of the old one) in which he finds him- 
self. Remember that these are matters, not of mere be- 
lief, but of experiment for many of us. 

Here, then, is our theory, the result of our experiments, 
and in explaining it to you I am giving you the benefit of 
my twenty years' work and study — slow, toilsome, diffi- 
cult work of many kinds, involving no little self-control 
and self-training. I think that all my fellow-students 
who have borne the burden and heat of that very long- 
day of twenty years will agree that it has been hard and 
slow work, but still a steady progress and development in 
many ways, and out of it all has emerged for all of us a 
certainty that nothing can shake, that makes us know 
where we stand. Out of it has come a firm and definite 
adhesion to this glorious Theosophy, which has done so 
much for us, which we find to account for so many things 
which would otherwise be insoluble mysteries, which 
stands by us in times of trouble and difficulty, and ex- 
plains so clearly and reasonably why the trouble and the 
difficulty come, and what they are going to do for us. It 
i> the most intensely practical theory all the way through, 
and we wish for nothing in Theosophy that is nol practi- 
cal and reasonable. Humbly following in the footsteps 
of the mighty Indian teacher of 2500 years ago, we would 
say to you what he said to the people of the village of 
Kalama when they came and asked him what, amid all 



202 MAN AND HIS BODIES. 

the varied doctrines of the world, they ought to believe": 
"Do not believe in a thing said merely because it is 
said; nor in traditions because they have been handed 
down from antiquity; nor in rumors, as such; nor in writ- 
ings by sages, merely because sages wrote them; nor in 
fancies that you may suspect to have been inspired in you 
by a deva (that is, in presumed spiritual inspiration); nor 
in inferences drawn from some haphazard assumption you 
may have made; nor because of what seems an analogical 
necessity; nor on the mere authority of your own teach- 
ers or masters. For this I have taught you, not to be- 
lieve merely because you have heard; but when you be- 
lieved of your own consciousness, then to act accordingly 
and abundantly." (Kalama Sutta of the Anguttara 
Mkaya.) 

That is a very fine attitude for the teacher of any relig- 
ion to take, and that is precisely the attitude we wish to 
take in Theosophy. We are not seeking for converts in 
the ordinary sense of that word. We are in no way under 
the deltTsion from which so many estimable orthodox peo- 
ple suffer, that unless you all believe as we do, you will 
have a very unpleasant and sulphurous time hereafter. We 
know perfectly well that every one of you will attain the 
final goal of humanity, whether you now believe what we 
tell you, or whether you do not. The progress of every 
man is absolutely certain; but he may make his road easy 
or he may make it difficult. If he goes on in ignorance, 
and seeks selfish ends in that ignorance, he is likely to 
find it very hard and painful; if he learns the truth about 
life and death, about God and man, and the relation be- 
tween them, he will understand how to travel so as to 
make the path easy for himself, and also (which is much 
more important) so as to be able to lend a helping hand to 
his fellow-travelers who know less than he. This is what 
you may do, and what we hope you will do. We have 
found this philosophy useful to us; we have found that it 
helps us in difficulties, that it makes life easier to bear, 
and death easier to face, and so we wish to share our gos- 
pel with you. We ask no blind faith from you; we simply 
put this philosophy before you and ask you to study it, 
and we believe that if you do so you will find what we 
have found, rest and peace and help, and the power to be 
of use in the world. 



Our Finer Forces. 



Proofs, Material Measurements, Demonstrations of 

Plain, Sensible Facts. — An Essay by 

Ella Dare, Austin, 111. 



To the altar of life we come as earnest seekers. Rever- 
ently we pause before the sacred shrine. With prayer 
for light to see and understand, we turn the pages of 
God's living book. 

We search for truth. Our faith in this divine impulse 
is based upon Christ's immortal promise: "Ask and ye 
shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be 
opened unto you." 

Our own age claims to be highly practical. Proofs, ma- 
terial measurements, demonstrations of plain, solid, sen- 
sible facts, are demanded, but just here we stop because 
in the face of all these imperative protestations we are 
confronted with the undeniable truth that the most com- 
mon, even-day, universal things in the world, are the 
most secret and hidden. Gravitation, heat, electricity, 
sound, light, ether — all these rulers of the material realm 
are unseen. 

Because we dwell amongst these verities, because we ac- 
cept without thought these ministrations, because these 
wonders, are our constant companions we cease to regard 
them with question or surprise. 

Infinite in its complexity of construction and func- 
tional activity is man's physical body. Unceasing re- 
search for ages by the most learned minds, has failed to 
fully explore or conquer its powers and resources. 

Still the work goes on, as day by day and year by year 



204 OUR FINER FORCES. 

new relations of its composite character are discovered 
and classified. 

Therefore, because of these unseen forces which are the 
component parts of our every-day life, we will put aside 
prejudice, and enter carefully, but fearlessly, into any 
path that may lead to truth. 

Our bodies have been likened to cities of individual 
atoms, obeying like good citizens the laws of molecular 
motion, coming to and emigrating from, according to con- 
ditions and circumstances formulated by higher forces. 

Science aims to establish a law of unity between all 
forms of motion as expressed in light, heat, electricity, 
sound and color. That all of these agencies rule in the 
human body, and that upon their harmonious or inhar- 
monious action depends our health, or disease, is a fact 
fully verified. 

Let us examine some of the wonders contained in this 
living temple which we inhabit! 

First of all we must recognize the close relation be- 
tween the body and its environment. Absolutely depend- 
ent it is upon the air, light and food supplied from with- 
out. It has been proven that the body is in fact the 
brain extended, and that by intervening fibres the brain 
cells are brought in contact with the other cells of the 
body. Again it is declared that the body itself is com- 
posed of minute living, atomic organisms, which pene- 
trate its vital fluid, and that they assume our own indi- 
vidual characteristics; that also, by our thoughts and 
deeds we modify these atomic existences, and east them 
out upon the air about us, thus materially influencing our 
surroundings. 

Dr. H. Baraduc of Paris holds the theory that every hu- 
man being is a "miniature sun," or a "man-sun," sur- 
rounded by a luminous atmosphere, called a photosphere, 
even as is the physical sun; and also that the human pho- 
tosphere accurately reflects our own spiritual conditions. 
With his assistants, he succeeded in taking several photo- 
graphs of vibrations from human bodies, which con- 
formed to the peaceful, or perturbed conditions of men- 
tal action. 

In the middle of the last century, Baron Reich enbach 
discovered that every magnet is surrounded by living rays 
of light that trace distinct lines of force, and that these 



OUR FINER FORCES. 205 

lines are physical. He also claimed that man is a kind of 
magnet in a magnetic field. 

Mr. J. J. G. Wilkinson in 1857 maintained that the 
skin, or the nervous system through it, pours forth a sub- 
tle radiation of tremendous efficacy on other organic crea- 
tures, and through this battery of surfaces, the animal 
creation, and man, most of all, is constantly impressing a 
character upon external nature, literally magnetizing it. 
From phenomena, well known to physiologists he demon- 
strates a "manifold nervous fluid" which passes through 
space and from body to body. In accordance with this 
truth it was, that Prof. Denton, the eminent geologist and 
scientist, succeeded so admirably in his psychometric ex- 
periments related in the book entitled, "The Soul of 
Things." 

As we consider the law of vibration and all that it 
means to the body, we are met by tremendous truths of 
limitless significance. Physiological functions bow to 
this unerring force. In all life, within and without, uni- 
versal pulsation is present. Vibration is the law of the 
universe. Visit, if you will, some power-house in the 
city where the whirr of machinery fills the air, and com- 
municates to you, its high tension — then, with your own 
fingers, lightly stop your ears, and you will be conscious of 
a power-house within your body, where the activity of the 
Infinite is working in full force. 

Mrs. Watt Hughes has discovered the fact that the hu- 
man voice is capable of printing form upon matter. A 
singer sends the voice against the surface of a membrane 
covered with a semi-fluid paste, which is placed over the 
mouth of a hollow receiver — the note strikes the paste in 
accurately outlined forms — those of flower-forms appear- 
ing most frequently. 

That each body lias a key-note which arises from and is 
modified by the prevailing emotions, is also proven in a 
similar way. 

Mr. Orookes, the scientist, gives a list of vibrations in 
the ether, of millions, billions, and trillions, correspond- 
ing to electricity, light, heat, color, and those vibrations 
known as the X-ray. 

Science also declares (hat there is only one force, and 
only one matter, subjed each to infinite variations. 

Herbert Spencer defines life as '"the continuous adjust- 



20G Otttt FINER FORCES. 

ment of internal relations, to external relations." Swe- 
denborg said that "Love is the life of man. Thought it- 
self proceeds from love. Truth proceeds from love as 
light from flame." 

Mrs. Browning declared that "He lives most life, who- 
ever breathes most air." 

Our first act in entering this world is to breathe, and 
we leave it with our last breath. Breath is, therefore, a 
Jiving power, the arbiter, the dictator, the boundary of 
our physical being. Every minute portion of our organ- 
ism, brain, nerve, muscle and fibre responds to this 
mighty and invisible force. 

Words are sign-boards along the broad highway of 
truth, and carry with them an inner meaning. In all 
languages, the air is used as the representative of spirit. 
The word soul is derived from a term meaning air, wind, 
breath. The Latin animus and anima come from the 
Greek word anemos, meaning wind. The old Saxon word 
for spirit, ghost, and the German geist are similarly de- 
rived. The word aspire is from the Latin ad, toward, and 
spiro, to breathe. The French esprit, the Italian spirito. 
the Spanish espiritus, and the Latin spiritus, all express 
the same meaning. 

All-powerful is breath, and its divine agencies! God 
"breathed into us the breath of life!" Through this sa- 
cred utterance beats the heart of transcendent truth. 
Breath is the vital elixir, the unseen guide that leads us 
into the measureless fields of ever-widening potencies, 
where we may learn to know ourselves as manifestations 
of infinite love and wisdom! 

In his "First Principles of Philosophy," Herbert Spen- 
cer says that "All motion in the universe is rhythmical — 
the movement of the pendulum, the ebb and flow of tides, 
day and night, the systolic and diastolic action of the 
heart, and the inspiration and expiration of the lungs. 
Our breathing is a double motion of the universal ether, 
an active and re-active movement. When we breathe in 
harmony with this movement we are well; when we 
breathe inharmoniously we are ill." 

But, back of these manifestations moves the one divine 
energy, the one infinite love, the one all-encompassing 
]ife_God! 

Our thoughts mold and shape our bodies, and direct our 



OUR FIXER FORCES. 207 

lives. Creative of good or ill, they hold sovereign sway. 
Love and hate, charity and ill-will, not only speak 
through our own organisms, but send out their individual 
vibrations into limitless thought realms, and generate 
therein the qualities of their own nature. 

By the control of this tremendous force our souls can 
be liberated from ills that oppress. Fear, anger, hatred, 
impatience, hurry of spirit, jealousy, revenge, are all de- 
structive, not only in tearing down the bodily tissues, but 
they imprison the mind and charge it with poisonous ac- 
tivities. Love, good cheer, gentleness, charity, sympa- 
thy and tenderness build .p the physical powers, pro- 
mote health, and bless with the radiance of the spirit's 
sunshine. 

These thought forces enter into the smallest details of 
our lives — into our family matters, our social relations, 
our religious aspirations, and our business interests. 

The command of thought, the power to hold it and di- 
rect it, may be gained by cultivation and concentration. 
"But how is this to be done?" is asked. "It is utterly im- 
possible for me to concentrate my thought on one object 
to the exclusion of all other things," is the common ob- 
jection. 

Perhaps this drifting of the mind may be best illus- 
trated by the Oriental story, which is no doubt familiar to 
many. There was a monkey, and like all other monkeys, 
he was restless, moving continually from one thing to an- 
other. Some one gave him wine to drink, and he grew 
more restless. A scorpion stung him, and that served to 
accentuate his activity, and then a demon entered into 
him, and he became an embodiment of perpetual motion. 
This illustrates the human mind as it jumps from one 
thing to another with a speed that words cannot measure. 

The remedy suggested for this turbulent state, is to sit 
quietly and let the mind run on. As if you yourself were 
an outsider, watching its antics and its capers. It is 
claimed that with each day's practice these high-rolling 
thought waves will gradually subside until at last they 
can he perfectly com rolled. Time alone can accomplish 
it, but the result justifies t he expenditure. 

Another mode in controlling the thought, may he prac- 
ticed with profit in connection with our daily duties. 

Bring your thought directly to bear upon the specific 



208 OUE FINER FOECES. 

act of the moment, though it may be of the most trifling 
nature. When you dress in the morning hold your 
thought to the matter in detail. Don't let it go down 
town, or out into the kitchen in advance of your body. 
That is tiresome; that is a waste of force. Just dress your- 
self. Don't use up your strength in analyzing and work- 
ing out all that lies before you for the day. Meet each 
demand as it presents itself. If you conserve your force, 
your work will be well done, and corresponding results 
will be satisfactory. You will feel no fatigue. Things 
will come easy, and work without tension will be pleasure. 

Hurry of spirit is one of the worst types of mental in- 
temperance, and production of a vast number of nervous 
diseases. Avoid hurry. Check yourself, even if it be a 
hundred times a day, and for one moment be deliberate. 
In time the habit will come to stay, and you will feel bet- 
ter and live longer. 

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for." That is 
the promise. 

Every thought we think is a reality in unseen sub- 
stance. If we hold, it steadily it will find shape in the 
outer world, whether it be the thought of hatred, of love, 
or the thought of success in any special undertaking — to 
us will come its fruitage of good or ill in accordance with 
that other divine promise, that "as ye sow, so shall ye also 
reap." It is the law. Seed sown in the unseen soil of 
thought germinates and grows for us in the visible world 
around us. 

If you desire to accomplish some certain aim, your suc- 
cess will be more assured if you speak of that desire to no 
one, unless to those who are in perfect accord with you 
and your desire. By intrusting your project to people 
uninterested, you weaken your own thought-power. 
Avoid entering into active sympathy with the thought of 
despondent or unhappy people, lest thereby you impair 
your own power to aid them. Rather hold steadily your 
faith in the Supreme Good, and minister to them from its 
abundance. 

Be wise in the exercise of the emotions, for they are the 
key-board of our being, and must be kept in perfect tune 
if we would live in health and harmony. 

These are only hints of almost innumerable ways by 
which we may attain to thought-control. If these are 



OUR FIXER FORCES. 209 

practiced, self-suggested means will appear with the needs 
that call for them. "Within yourself," says R. W. Trine, 
"lies the cause, of whatever enters into your life. To 
come into the full realization of your own awakened, in- 
terior powers, is to be able to condition your life in exact 
accord with what ycu would have it." 

An occult writer has beautifully said that "Motion is 
the ever-weaving shuttle of Omnipotence, bringing to 
light the thought of Infinite Mind." 

In the inner temple of each one's being, love and un- 
derstanding, emotion and intellect, with their infinite ra- 
diations flow from one exhaustless source, the divine cre- 
ative intelligence, that speaks in harmonious vibrations. 

Recognizing our relations to both planes of being, the 
physical and the spiritual, progress and soul-growth must 
depend on the cultivation of our own powers. 

In Romans 8:6 we read: "To be spiritually-minded is 
life and peace." 

Prof. Drummond says: "The natural life owes all to en- 
vironment — so must the spiritual. Xow the environ- 
ment of the spiritual life is God, as nature, therefore, 
forms the complement of the natural life. God is the 
complement of the spiritual life. It is not a strange 
thing, then, for the soul to find its life in God. This is 
its native air." 

If you would cultivate the spiritual perception, seek the 
silence. Sit apart and alone. That the nerves may be- 
come tranquil, invoke the aid of regular, and rhythmic 
breathing. Breath is the bridge between the physical 
and spiritual kingdoms. Relax the body. Let each 
breath be a messenger, of the soul's aspiration. Dismiss 
from the mind the cares and anxieties, the prejudices and 
animosities of the outer life. Though difficult at first, it 
can be done. Send out the thought to God — the Su- 
preme Good — and in a short time the realization of har- 
monic vibrations will be achieved. You will be conscious 
of thrills or pulsations about, around, and permeating 
the whole being. Call then upon the law that lifts the 
soul to upper heights— the law of universal Love. 

Deeper and slower and more quiet will the breathing 
become, for, as the functions of the outer being are less 
active, the soul'.- inner respiration is made manifest. 

Be faithful and steadfast. Through this unfoldment 



210 OUR FINER FORCES. 

you will learn of higher truths, which will lift the daily 
duties out of the dull and prosaic into a light that trans- 
forms drudgery into a luminous significance, linking it to 
larger uses. 

Individual life will extend its narrow earthly outlines 
into the unutterable grandeur and majesty of the soul's 
eternal growth. 

As day follows darkness, so surely rises the sun of 
knowledge within the soul. "Seek and ye shall find." 
strip off the bandages of doubt. Look for the light, and 
its baptism shall bless you. Attune your thought to life's 
inner harmonies. Let the beneficence of truth illumine 
your soul with its glowing radiance. 

Pursue with unswerving ardor the unseen pathways of 
the spiritual nature, and your whole life will set itself to 
the higher virtues, in octaves of uplifting melody. 

The great map of the soul will be unrolled, and as little 
by little you acquaint yourself with its geography, you 
will conquer sense-limitations, and pass out into unex- 
plored regions. An exaltation of spirit will lead you into 
larger fields of truth. 

If you ask for guidance in the cares of every day in the 
complex ways about, listen to that voice that speaks with- 
in the templed dome of your own soul. Out of God's 
soundless silence it will give you counsel. Prove all 
things by your own highest measure of truth and justice. 
It will never fail you. 

Around us and about us, as close to us as breath itself, 
are answers to our questions. Let us be ready to receive 
them. Let us apply them to universal good, and count- 
less more will wait to do us service. 



Jesus a Myth. 



Some Pertinent Questions and Historical Illustrations 

by P. J. Cooley, in the Chicago 

Record= Herald. 



I ask in all candor of the inquirer after truth to lay 
aside all superstitious notions and previous religious in- 
struction and consider a few facts concerning this all-im- 
portant subject- 
There are only two sides to a question — did such a be- 
ing exist or not? 

I am aware that since the day of Constantine millions 
of honest and good people have built their hopes and 
risked their future salvation on their crucified and risen 
Savior, without a fear or doubt, and lived and died believ- 
ing He was still interceding at the throne of mercy in 
their behalf. For anyone to even express a doubt con- 
cerning Hia personality has been met by the slurs from 
the priesthood and many pious believers, and a demand 
for a recantation with threats of the faggots and the 
stake. 

When we come to consider the oldest religions of an- 
tiquity that were reverently believed by millions of peo- 
ple we learn that the inanimate as well as the animate 
were deified and reverently worshiped as divinities or 
gods, and no doubt the ancient astrologies antedate all 
other systems <>f worship. 

They built the pyramids and deified the sun. n ami 

stars. They also divided the year into day-, wick- and 
months. They named the day- id' the week ami the 
months after these deified star-. They gave as the twelve 



212 JESUS A MYTH. 

signs of the zodiac, now in use in all of our almanacs, 
which were the twelve apostles of this sun god whom they 
named "Great Jehovah!" 

THE GOD OF MOSES. 

The Jews later on discarded all lesser gods or stars that 
were ruled over by the sun, and accepted Jehovah as the 
one God. Moses became acquainted with his Jehovah in 
Egypt. 

This Jewish Jehovah was adopted by the Christians, 
who became the father of the patron saint of the Chris- 
tian world. 

The sun worshipers also deified gods, saviors and re- 
deemers on earth and claimed for each of them a virgin 
birth. In the world's history as many as forty-five can be 
named. Also more than twenty saviors have been repre- 
sented as crucified to redeem to world from sin. 

And all the different names selected by the different 
races of mankind in all ages are only different names for 
the sun, such as Jupiter, Apollo, Venus, Pan, Castor 
Apollo, Brahma, Allah, Ormadz, Elohim, Bacchus, 
Horns, Ba, Sol, Odin, Vishnu, Siva, Jehovah, Apollo- 
nius, Zeus, Eomulus, etc. — all pure myths, only personifi- 
cations of the elements, showing clearly deified gods ex- 
isting only in name. But at the same time untold mill- 
ions of human beings have offered sacrifices and prayer 
devoutly to all these mythical divinities. They have all 
been lauded by pious priests, and their praises sung and 
their merits written up in all the Bibles and sacred litera- 
ture of heathen antiquity. 

But, say you, we have the Holy Bible, the revealed will 
of God as a witness to Christ's personality, and also the 
miracles he performed. Who wrote the four gospels? 
Nobody knows. And His biographers never saw Christ 
nor any of His apostles. Most scholars agree the four 
gospels were written in the second century, all from tra- 
dition, and the mythology of other oriental gods were dic- 
tated by editors and theologians. 

CHEIST NOT MENTIONED. 

Outside of the four gospels we have no authentic his- 
tory of Christ. Josephus makes no mention of Him. 
But the English edition makes mention of a man, "if he 



JESUS A MYTH. 213 

may be called a man/' a doer of wonderful works, then 
relates wonderful events in Jewish" history. 

This account is classed an an interpolation by all 
scholars, but is pronounced as genuine by ''Eusebius," 
who is universally accused of scriptural forgeries. He 
says in his writings he was justifiable in lying so long as 
the interests of the church were advanced. 

"Cyclopedia Britanica" also states that the writings of 
Josephus are considered as spurious. No doubt Eusebius 
was the author. Eusebius occupied a seat at the right 
hand of Constantine at the council of Nice. 

Bacchus, the god of wine, like the Roman Hercules, 
had a virgin for a mother and a god for a father. After 
his death and resurrection, like Christ, he descended into 
hell and preached to the saints in confinement. He also 
turned water into wine "that cheereth both God and 
man." He cast out devils and raised the dead. 

Chrishna, the incarnate god of the Hindus, did the 
same. Rev. George Wadington, of England, fellow of 
Trinity College, seventy years ago wrote the history of the 
Christian Church, in which he says: "It is a wonderful 
coincident that just at the time of the crucifixion of 
Christ the mountain should be rent, the dead arise and 
walk with the living in the streets of Jerusalem; that such 
an eruption of so stupendous a character should happen 
at that moment; that the sun should be darkened for the 
space of three hours in the middle of the day." 

SAGA OF HEATHENS. 

But similar events are related regarding the deaths of 
all oriental gods; for instance, in the cases of Alexander 
the Great and Julius Caesar. But m all the writings 
through all the ages no mention is made of the convul- 
sions of nature at the death of the hero of Christianity. 
The conception and birth of Christ also correspond with 
the virgin birth of Plato, who was worshiped as a god for 
400 years, and whose statue was placed in the Pantheon 
with other oriental gods. 

Philo, a contemporary of Christ, an Alexandrian Jew 
and a Learned historian, wrote the lives and doings of all 
important personages of his time and never mentioned 

such a person B8 JeSUS ( Ihrist. 

Seneca, Pliny, Plutarch, Celsus, Origen, Manichaeus 



214 JESUS A MYTH. 

and Cotelerius, all authentic historians of the first and 
second centuries, fail to mention Christ or any of His 
apostles. 

"Kenan" asks how it is that the Christian fathers have 
never been able to fix the date of the birth of their hero. 
or to fix the time any nearer than 130 years? 

Is it fair or reasonable to assert that all oriental gods 
of antiquity were all pure myths and Christ the only per- 
sonality? I leave the reader to judge. 

All oriental gods appointed twelve apostles to teach 
their doctrine. The Jews had their twelve tribes of 
Israel. There are twelve labors of Hercules. There are 
twelve celestial gods on Mount Olympus. The twelve 
foundations for the walls of the new Jerusalem were gar- 
nished with twelve precious stones. 

I show in my book, "Evolution," that the church bor- 
rowed every iota of their doctrines, rites and ceremonies 
from the Jews and pagans, as also the death, burial and 
resurrection of their hero, including the three days in the 
tomb. 

STORY OF THE SUN. 

The pagan astronomers at an early day learned the 
cause of the sun in his journey to the south in the winter 
and his return in the spring. 

They saw on March 21 the sun had reached his greatest 
distance to the south of the equinoctial line, where, so far 
as time can be counted, that body remained at a standstill 
for three days. Then it started on its return journey. 

This was recognized by pagan nations as the death, 
burial and resurrection of their sun god, rising from his 
grave to give life, light and heat to a lost world, to restore 
and animate all animal and vegetable life alike, to give 
food, comfort and happiness to man. So to both pagan 
and Christian it was a great day of rejoicing. The god 
has arisen ! The new-born god has atoned for the sins of 
the world, has conquered the cold and dreary winter and 
brought the beautiful spring. The harvest, the fig and 
the spring lamb (the emblem of Christianity) — all joined 
in the festival of the sun god. 

Here is where we get the conception of all oriental 
gods, dying on March 21 and rising on March 25. All 
oriental gods, including the Christians' hero, were all born 



JESUS A MYTH. 215 

on Dec. 25. See Chambers' "Book of Days," Vol. II; 
also the Encyclopedia Britanica. 

The day was arbitrarily fixed since pagans had cele- 
brated this day for centuries as the anniversary of all 
pagan sun gods. It is purely a pagan festival. 

This Christian festival was instituted by Constantine, 
the father of state Christianity, who murdered his whole 
family, killed his wife by boiling her in a vat of hot water 
and established Christianity by suppressing paganism by 
arbitrary law. 

For further reference see "Gibbon's History of Chris- 
tianity/' "Draper's Conflict Between Science and Relig- 
ion," Parish Ladd's "Hebrew and Christian Mythology," 
Kersey Graves' "Crucified Saviors," Graves' "Bible ' cf 
Bibles," and all works on the mythology of the ancients. 

Religions are opinions; prove but one. 

And all men mingle in a common faith. — P. J. Cooley, 
Author of Evolution. 



Reincarnation. 



A Lecture Delivered Before a Chicago Audience by 

C. W. Lead beater, the Great Psychic, 

of London, England. 



Theosophy has many new ideas to put before those who 
study it — ideas which are new to many of us in the world 
of Western thought, at any rate, though they have in real- 
ity been before the world for thousands of years. Theos- 
ophy comes before us as the truth which lies behind all 
the religions, and thus it has no statements to make 
which contradict any one of them though it may contain 
and does contain very many statements which arc at va- 
riance with bigotry and intolerance and narrowness of 
doctrine. 

There is perhaps no theosophical teaching to which 
greater exception is taken than to this doctrine of rein- 
carnation. People object to it very strongly, bul we who 



216 REINCARNATION. 

lecture upon such subjects notice that whenever an ad- 
dress upon reincarnation is advertised, we are always sure 
of a good audience. Many of them object to the doe- 
trine, but still they come to hear about it; why? Because 
it is a most fascinating doctrine, and they are drawn to 
discuss it in spite of themselves. The commonest objec- 
tion that they make is that they have had so much sorrow 
and suffering in this life that they cannot possibly enter- 
tain the idea that they may have to go through it all again 
— which is obviously no argument at all. Others are ap- 
palled at the prospect of more lives, and regard it as a 
gloomy outlook; whereas in reality it is the most consol- 
ing idea possible. Others say that this is a strange and 
new doctrine. 

Certainly it is not new; on the contrary it is one of the 
very oldest. You will find it taught by the Hindu sages 
thousands of years before Christianity, and it. is an essen- 
tial part of the religion of Buddhism, which has at the 
present moment a greater number of adherents than any 
other religion in the world. There is but little said of it 
in the later form of the Egyptian religion, though we find 
references which indicate that it had been known there 
also. If we come down to the time of Greece and Rome, 
we shall find reincarnation playing a very definite part in 
the philosophy of the period and having a great hold 
upon the people. If you look back to your school 
days you may remember a passage in the sixth book of the 
Aeneid, in which Virgil tells us how Aeneas visits his 
father Anchises in the after world, and how Anchises 
shows him the enormous crowd of souls of all nations and 
tribes who are crowding to the banks of the river Lethe 
on their way back into earthly bodies. 

If you come down to even later days you will find that 
this idea of reincarnation has not been forgotten. In the 
system of Schopenhauer you will find it brought promi- 
nently forward. Also you will find that Fichte and Les- 
sing look upon it with great respect, as the best hypothe- 
sis of life. To take the very latest instance, the great 
orientalist, Max Muller, who himself did not hold this 
doctrine of reincarnation in earlier life, admits his belief 
in it in a book published after his death. He says: "I can 
not help thinking that the souls towards whom we feel 
drawn in this life are the very souls whom we knew and 
loved in a former life, and that the souls who repel us 



REINCARNATION. 217 

here, we ao not know why, are the souls that earned our 
disapproval, the souls from whom we kept aloof in a for- 
mer life." 

Even now this doctrine is held by a majority of man- 
kind, by the teeming millions of India, China and Japan 
— in fact almost everywhere except in the Western world. 
Since such great men have spoken of it so respectfully, it 
is impossible for any one who thinks to cast it aside as un- 
worthy of consideration. 

Many people seem to think that what is new to them 
cannot possibly be true; yet it would surely be rash to 
make such a statement. Think how our ancestors 
laughed at first at the idea of electricity, telephones and 
steam engines. You may remember how it was declared 
impossible for any vehicle to travel safely at a rate ex- 
ceeding twenty miles an hour. Yet all these ideas which 
our fathers discredited are the commonplaces of our life 
to-day, so we should beware lest in regard to other new 
ideas we repeat our father's mistakes. For it is evident 
that this doctrine of reincarnation removes many difficul- 
ties and solves many problems which upon any other the- 
ory remain insoluble. 

There is sometimes a misconception in the minds of 
some people in regard to reincarnation. It must not for 
a moment be confused with the old idea of the transmi- 
gration of souls — the theory that if a man exhibits during 
one earthly life a nature resembling that of some animal, 
when he next returns to physical existence he is likely to 
be reborn in the form of that animal. As a matter of fact 
that is not so. Our Theosophical theory of evolution 
fully recognized that man has arisen through the animal 
kingdom, but he has long passed the stage at which it 
could have been possible for him to fall back into it. 

His future lives, then, will be human, and they will 
probably be much like this one, but always just a little 
better, because he is steadily evolving. He is here on the 
earth in order that he may learn certain lessons. Does it 
seem probable that he can learn all those lessons in one 
short life of seventy or eighty years? No, it is certainly 
impossible. So if the man is to survive death at all, surely 
he is to go on learning. It may bee d that he may 

progress in BOme Other world, but why should this In 80? 

If this world is good enough for him to Live in once, why 



218 REINCARNATION. 

is it not good enough for him to live in a hundred times? 
Why should he not come back and learn all the lessons 
that this wonderful and beautiful old world has to teach 
him? It would seem a wise and natural economy in*the 
Divine scheme that man should continue to evolve on 
this earth until he has exhausted its possibilities, and no 
man can claim to have achieved that as yet. 

Consider, too, the problems which this theory solves. 
Think of the terrible inequality in the world. Look 
round you in any great city and you will see some living 
in luxury and others starving, some who have all kinds of 
advantages in the way of higher teaching, of art and mu- 
sic and philosophy to develop the moral side of their na- 
tures, and others who are living in the midst of criminal- 
ity, who have practically no chance whatever of moral 
progress in this incarnation. Take the case of a child 
who is born in one of the slums of a great city, born in an 
atmosphere of crime, from a father who is a drunkard and 
a mother who is a thief. That child from the very day 
of its birth has never seen anything but crime and sin; he 
has never seen the bright side of life in the least, and he 
knows nothing at all of any religion. What chance of 
progress has he that is in any way equal to the chance that 
we ourselves have had? What is the advantage to that 
child of all our music, our art, our literature or philoso- 
phy? If you could suddenly snatch him out of those 
surroundings, and put him among us, he would not in the 
least understand our life, because he has not been brought 
up to it. His opportunity is assuredly not in any sense 
equal to ours. If you go outside the pale of civilization 
you will still find savage races existing in various parts of 
the world; what of their opportunities? It is not con- 
ceivable that those men can develop as fully as we. How 
is this to be accounted for? 

There are three possible hypotheses — three possible 
theories of life. First of all there is the materialistic hy- 
pothesis that there is no scheme of life at all, that we are 
simply ruled by blind chance. We are born by chance 
and we die by chance, and when we die that is the end of 
us. That is not a particularly satisfactory theory, not 
one which we should desire to accept unless we found 
ourselves forced to it. But are we so forced? I think 
not; in fact, all the evidence tells distinctly in the oppo- 
site direction. What is the use of all the progress that 



BEIXCAKXATIOX. 219 

we see taking place around us if it is not working to- 
wards a definite end? 

The second hypothesis is that of Divine caprice, the 
theory that God puts one man here and another there be- 
cause He chooses to do so, and that, although their oppor- 
tunities of progress are utterly unequal, their eternal des- 
tiny hereafter depends upon their success in achieving a 
very high level of morality. This theory makes no at- 
tempt to account for the inequalities in earth-life, and 
offers precisely the same heavenly reward to all of the 
small number who are supposed to attain it at all, quite ir- 
respective of the amount of suffering endured here. 
Some modification of this theory is at present suggested by 
most of the Occidental forms of religion, though I hope to 
show later that it is by no means the true and original 
teaching of Christianity. 

Certainly it would seem to a thinking man that a God 
who has put us in a position amid respectable surround- 
ings in which we could not easily go very far wrong, and 
at the same time has put another man in a position such 
as we have described where it is almost impossible for him 
to do right, can hardly be a just deity. Indeed some of 
the most deeply religious of men have felt themselves 
sorrowfully forced to admit that either God is not all- 
powerful, and cannot help all the misery and sin which 
we see in the world about us, or else that he is not all- 
good, and does not care about the sufferings of His crea- 
tures. In Theosophy we hold most firmly that He is both 
all-loving and all-powerful, and we reconcile this belief 
with the facts of life around us by means of this doctrine 
of reincarnation. I know of no other theory through 
which such reconciliation is possible; and surely the only 
hypothesis which allows us rationally to hold the belief 
that God is an all-powerful and all-loving Father is at 
least worthy of careful examination, before we cast it con- 
temptuously aside in order to blazon forth our conviction 
that He does not possess those qualities. Observe that 
there is absolutely no other alternative; either reincarna- 
tion is true, or the idea of Divine justice is nothing but a 
dream. 

How does orthodoxy deal with so weighty a considera- 
tion as this? Usually it scarcely attempts to deal with it 
at all. but contents itself with vaguely suggesting that 



220 KEINCAKNATION. 

God's justice is not as man's justice. That is probably 
perfectly true; but at least Divine justice must be greater 
than ours, and not less; it must be an extension of ours, 
including considerations which are beyond our reach — 
not something falling so far short of ours as to involve 
atrocities which even we who are only men would never 
think of committing. 

But what is our third hypothesis? What does the the- 
ory of reincarnation suggest to us? That the life of man 
is a far longer life than we have supposed; that man is a 
soul and has a body, and that what we have called his life 
is but one day in the true and greater life of that soul. 
This idea may seem strange to many of us in the Occi- 
dent, for we appear to consider the soul as merely an ap- 
panage of the body, a sort of balloon floating above him, 
instead of, as it really is, the man himself. Far away in 
India they know more about it than that; you will con- 
stantly hear the Hindu say, "My body is hungry, my body 
is tired," instead of, as we should, "I am hungry, I am 
tired." Of course that sounds strange to us, and it would 
be stilted and pedantic for us to use such a form of words, 
and yet it shows that that man whom we impudently des- 
ignate a heathen understands the human constitution, 
and that we ourselves do not. The parable which sym- 
bolized a single incarnation as a day in the true life is an 
attractive one. Man rises in the morning, and learns the 
lesson of his day, and when he is tired he lies down to 
sleep; and the next day he comes back again like a child 
at school, and learns another lesson. Again and again 
he revisits this earth to learn more and more of these les- 
sons, to acquire new and higher qualities, and so evolution 
proceeds. 

Thus we realize that less evolved souls are simply chil- 
dren in a lower class, and that they are not to be regarded 
as wicked or backsliding, but only as younger brothers. 
Think of the child at the kindergarten; he practically 
plays most of the time. They do not set him at once to 
the higher school-work; because at that stage he could 
not understand it, and such teaching would be useless and 
injurious to him. Just the same thing is true with re- 
gard to a soul; it could not receive the higher teaching at 
first. It must begin with the stronger, coarser impacts 
from without, which reach it in savage life; it must be 



REINCARNATION. 221 

stirred by those vigorous and insistent shakings before it 
can learn to respond to the far finer vibrations at higher 
levels which in advanced civilization will afford it such 
varied opportunities of rapid development. So by slow 
degrees and through many lives that soul will reach our 
own level; but it does not stop there. There have been 
men in the world who have stood head and shoulders 
above their fellows; they show us what we shall be, and 
they are in themselves a proof of reincarnation, for there 
is no conceivable single life that could evolve the savage 
into an Emerson, a Plato or a Shakspeare. If we accept 
reincarnation we can account rationally for the existence 
side by side in the world of the criminal and the philoso- 
pher — but on no other hypothesis can this be done. 

To understand it fully we must take along with it the 
other great theosophical doctrine of Karma, the law of 
Cause and Effect, and realize that if a man disturbs the 
equilibrium of Nature it will press back upon him with 
exactly the same force that he himself employed. It is 
under this law that he is being reborn; if he finds himself 
in a certain place or in certain surroundings, it is because 
he has so acted in a former life as to bring himself under 
these conditions. This great intrinsic part of the theo- 
sophical doctrine must never be forgotten. Though the 
man does not bring over with him in his memory the de- 
tails of his previous life, his soul does bear within it the 
qualities developed in that life, so that he is precisely 
what he has made himself, and no effort is ever lost. 
Thus the whole of the world is one mighty graded course 
of evolution. "When the savage has had as many lives 
and as much experience as we have had, he will probably 
stand where we do; for thousands of years ago we stood 
exactly where he now is. It is simply that he is younger, 
and we should no more blame him for that than we blame 
a child of five because he is not yet ten. 

Observe also how blessed is the consolation of realizing 
that we have all eternity before us in which to develop. 
Christ's command to Hia disciples was: "Be ye perfect as 
your Father in heaven is perfect," bill if we face the facts 
we must admit that we cannot possibly become perfect in 
one life. Only in this doctrine of many lives i^ there any 
possibility thai this command can ever be obeyed. But 
with the infinite opportunity which reincarnation gives 



222 REINCARNATION. 

us, surely we also shall grow onward and upward, till we 
reach the level of the saints and the sages, the philoso- 
phers and the saviors of mankind. But it is only in the 
knowledge of the wide life that we see this to be possible 
— nay, not possible only, but certain. 

It may perhaps be asked: "How is it that these doc- 
trines of reincarnation and perfect justice are not taught 
in the churches to-day?" It is because Christianity has 
forgotten much of its original teaching, because it is now 
satisfied with only part (and a very small part) of what it 
originally knew. "They have still the same scriptures," 
you will say. Yes, but those very scriptures themselves 
tell you often of something more, which is now lost. 
What is meant by Christ's constant references to the mys- 
teries of the kingdom of God, by His frequent statements* 
to His disciples that the full and true interpretation could 
be given only to them, and that to the others He must 
speak in parables? Why does He perpetually use the 
technical terms connected with the well-known mystery- 
teaching of antiquity? What does St. Paul mean when 
he says, "We speak wisdom among them that are perfect" 
— a well-known technical term for the men at a certain 
stage of initiation? Again and again he uses terms of the 
same sort; he speaks of "the wisdom of God in a mystery, 
the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the world 
began, and which none even of the princes of this world 
know" — a statement which could not by any possibility 
have been truthfully made if he had been referring merely 
to ordinary Christian teaching, which is openly preached 
before all men. 

His immediate followers, the Fathers of the Church, 
knew perfectly well what he meant, for they all use pre- 
cisely the same phraseology. Clement of Alexandria, one 
of the earliest and greatest of them all, tells us that "it is 
not lawful to reveal to profane persons the mysteries of 
the Word." In another place he writes that "the Greater 
Mysteries include the Gnosis, the scientific knowledge of 
God" — a very remarkable expression, which could cer- 
tainly not be employed with reference to any modern ec- 
clesiastical teaching. His pupil Origen writes of "the 
popular, irrational faith" which leads to what he calls 
somatic or physical Christianity, based upon the gospel 
narrative, and he contrasts this with the spiritual Chris- 



REINCARNATION. 223 

tianity conferred by the Gnosis or Wisdom. There are 
very many similar passages, which make it absolutely cer- 
tain that in the beginning Christianity, like all other re- 
ligions, had its outer ethical system for the unlearned, 
and its inner philosophical teaching which was given only 
to those who had proved themselves worthy of it. This 
is not a question of opinion or sentiment; it is a question 
of fact, and the facts cannot be disputed. This inner 
teaching was lost to the church when an ignorant major- 
ity voted out the great Gnostic Doctors, but it has not 
been lost to the world, for it still survives in Theosophy, 
and reincarnation is part of it. 

Very few references to this doctrine now remain in the 
gospels, but there are one or two which are unmistakable. 
There is one clear, definite statement by Christ himself 
which of course must settle the question once for all for 
any one who believes in the gospel history. When he 
has been speaking of John the Baptist, and inquiring 
what opinions were generally held about him, He termi- 
nates the conversation by the emphatic pronouncement, 
"If ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come." 
I am quite aware that the orthodox theologian thinks 
that Christ did not mean what He said in this case, and 
wishes us to believe that He was endeavoring to explain 
that Elijah had been a type of John the Baptist; but in 
reply to such a disingenuous plea, it will be sufficient to 
ask what would be thought of any one who, in ordinary 
life, tried to explain away a plain statement in so clumsy 
a fashion. Either Christ said this or He did not say it; 
if He did not say it there is a mistake in the gospel; if He 
did say it, reincarnation is a fact. The passage will be 
found in Matthew xi:li. 

Another reference occurs in the story of the man who 
was born blind, and was brought to the Christ to be cured. 
The disciples inquired "Lord, who did sin, this man or his 
fathers, that he was born blind?" Beyond all question 
this shows that they believed it to be possible for a man 
to sin before he was born — that is, in a previous birth. 
Evidently the idea of reincarnation was not at all strange 
or unfamiliar to their minds, and it i> noteworthy that 
Christ in J I is answer in no way rebukes them or de- 
nounces their suggestion as foolish, hut accepts ii quite as 
a matter of course. Yet on other occasions Be. wras by no 



224 REINCARNATION. 

means backward in commenting vigorously upon inaccu- 
rate doctrine or practice. 

Years ago an English clergyman wrote a remarkable 
book called "From Death to the Judgment Day," in 
which he showed that reincarnation was the great secret 
teaching of the Christian religion, which cleared up all its 
difficulties and made it into a coherent and rational sys- 
tem. Quite lately an American Methodist minister has 
published a book called "Birth a New Chance," in which 
he argues the same question, though along very different 
lines. His theory of rebirth only very partially agrees 
with ours, since he denies that the soul has at present any 
intelligent existence apart from its successive physical 
bodies; but it is at least interesting to find that, along 
such different lines of thought, men of various shades of 
opinion are beginning to see the necessity of this funda- 
mental doctrine. 

There are other of life's problems, beside that great 
one of inequality, which seem explicable only on the hy- 
pothesis of reincarnation. Take, for example, the ques- 
tion of genius. It sometimes happens that a man is born 
like Mozart, who at the age of four was able not only to 
play difficult pieces of music, but to compose the most 
elaborate and beautiful pieces, violating none of the com- 
plicated laws of harmony, to learn which costs the ordi- 
nary musician so much time and pains. How does this 
happen? We all know the ordinary scientific answer, 
that his genius is hereditary, that he is reverting to some 
musical ancestor. Yet we have no trace of this musical 
ancestor. The family was musical, I believe, but surely 
not at all musical enough to account for the development 
of such transcendent genius in their son. Take the case 
of Shakspeare, another transcendent genius. Look back 
at his forefathers, give him if you will the whole Anglo- 
Saxon nation for ancestry and let him have the combined 
intelligence of the entire race; even then whence comes 
such an eminent tragedian? We know something of the 
Anglo-Saxon race, and we know that its strength did not 
lie in that direction; they were brave men, mighty drink- 
ers, Gargantuan feasters, but hardly likely to produce a 
poet of delicate fancy and of far-reaching knowledge of 
human nature. The whole nation presents no ancestor 
of Shakspeare's calibre, no one to whom he could have re- 



< 



REIXCARXATION. 225 

verted. So there seems a certain incompleteness about 
the explanation by heredity alone. But if we regard 
Shakspeare and Mozart as souls, and understand that they 
have had many lives before in which to develop their ge- 
nius, the matter at once becomes more comprehensible. 
If we may look back into other races for their intellectual 
ancestry, we do see other men comparable with them — 
men who may well have been themselves in other forms. 
We can imagine that Shakspeare might have been Virgil 
or Homer or Aeschylus, that Mozart might have been a 
reincarnation of Orpheus; and we feel at once that we are 
in the presence of a more satisfactory theory. 

People often seem to think that the doctrine of rein- 
carnation contradicts that of heredity, but it is not so. 
It is quite true that a man inherits physical and mental 
characteristics from his parents; he is born into their 
family because he is a soul that has deserved just such a 
body as they can give him, or because the limitations 
which they impose upon him are needed in his develop- 
ment. If the average man were put in a family from 
which he would receive a perfect body it would not be a 
fit expression of him, and would be in no way suited to 
the requirements of his evolution. Theosophy in no way 
condemns the doctrine of heredity; in fact that doctrine 
is a necessary part of its scheme. With relation to this, 
and indeed to all this most prolific subject, Mrs. Besant'a 
manual upon Reincarnation should be consulted. Ic 
deals with the question at much greater length than is 
possible in an evening's lecture, and treats it with an abil- 
ity and thoroughness which would in any case be beyond 
my power. The chapters on the subject in her Ancient 
Wisdom, and in Mr. Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism and 
Growth of the Soul should also be studied by those who 
wish to gain a comprehensive grasp of this fundamental 
truth. 

It may be well for me before closing to refer brief! v to 
one or two of the objections which have sometimes been 
brought against this doctrine of reincarnation. One is 
that the population of the earth is stated to be increasing, 
and people say, ""If the number of souls is constant, and 
the same people are returning over and over again how- 
can the population increase?" First of all, there is no 
certainty ihat the population of the world is increasing 



226 REINCARNATION. 

It is certainly doing so here, in the countries in which we 
take statistics, but think of the vast populations of the in- 
terior of China, of the Malay archipelago, and of Central 
Africa. The population in all these places may be, and 
probably is, decreasing, for souls are gradually rising out 
of the lower races into the higher. But whether that is 
so or not, it makes no difference to the theory of reincar- 
nation. We hold that the number of souls connected 
with this cycle of evolution is definite, but that only a 
very small proportion of this total is in physical incarna- 
tion. The interval between incarnations is so much 
longer than the incarnation itself that a very slight short- 
ening of it would very largely increase the physical popu- 
lation without in the least affecting the total number. 

But the grand objection which occurs to most people 
when they first encounter this theory is, "Why do we not 
remember our past births? if we have had so many won- 
derful and interesting experiences; if we formed part of 
that great Aryan immigration across the Himalayas, if we 
chanted Sanskrit Vedas in that prehistoric world; if we 
were among the, multitudes who sat entranced in Indian 
palm-groves, listening amid all the glory of the tropical 
moonlight to the golden words which flowed from the 
mouth of the grandest of earth's teachers, Siddartha Gau- 
tama, whom men call the Buddha; if we bowed before the 
orb of day or venerated the sacred fire in ancient Persia, 
or read the star-lore of Chaldea; if we helped to build the 
pyramid, or to raise the stupendous temples whose ruins 
tower tremendous above the land of Khem; if we had ouu 
part in the free, splendid open-air life of Greece, with all 
its keen delight in beauty and in liberty; if we marched 
in the serried ranks of Roman armies, with that magnifi- 
cent reserve-force of order and discipline which made us 
easily the masters of the world; if, later still, we fought in 
armor in the Crusades, or sang vespers in medieval monas- 
teries; if all this, or any of this, be true — if we have all 
this priceless wealth of experience behind us, where is the 
memory of it all, and why do we know nothing of it 
now?" 

Now the answer to this question is twofold. First, 
many men do remember. Among our own theosophical 
students many have succeeded in bringing through such 
recollection. It may be asked, how do such students 



REIXCARXATIOK 227 

know that they are not simply dreaming, or under a de- 
lusion? To them the proof is perfect, and has been many 
times multiplied, for again and again One has verified the 
discoveries of another, and they have described accurately 
landscapes and even statues which they have afterwards 
visited in physical consciousness. They themselves know 
very well that it is no delusion, though they would never 
attempt to prove this to others. For the outsider this is 
of course a mere assertion, but at least it is a piece of evi- 
dence to be taken into account along with other testi- 
mony. 

You will find this teaching of reincarnation also given 
by the French school of Spiritists of Alan Kardec, and 
one of its members, Monsieur Gabriel Delanne, recently 
published an article giving many new examples of persons 
who remembered past births, and had proved it to his sat- 
isfaction. There is plenty of evidence if you only seek 
for it. In Burmah, for example, it is quite a common 
thing for a child to remember his past life, and I have 
read a similar story not long ago in the newspaper with 
regard to a boy in America. Many people therefore do re- 
member, but it still remains true that the majority do not. 
Why is that? Because in each incarnation the man takes 
upon himself not only a new physical body, but also new 
astral and mental bodies. At the present stage of our ev- 
olution our memories are centered in the mental body, we 
remember with the mind; and our mind cannot remember 
a past incarnation because it has not had one, since it is 
part of the new furniture which we have acquired for this 
present birth. But the soul, the true man, has had many 
births, and remembers them perfectly; and as soon as we 
can learn to focus our consciousness at thai level, to raise 
it from the mind into the soul, and to remember by means 
of that, we shall find the whole long story of these pre- 
vious lives spread before us like an unrolled scroll. 

To us who hold it thie belief has been valuable. It has 
given US hope and comfort, il has explained life to u-. it 
has enabled as to live it better than before. We believe 
that it will do the same for yoii if yon are able to accept 
it. 1 have done do more than outline it. for it need- full 
examination and deep <\\\<]y. There is far more to be 
said for it than I have said; then- are many weighty argu- 
ments which 1 have not adduced. Bui if I have succeeded 



228 REINCARNATION. 

in awakening your interest, in stimulating you to read 
some of the literature of the subject, then my address to- 
night has not failed in its object. 



Wonderful Spiritual Phenomena. 

Materializing of Food — Spirits From Heaven — Pray* 

ing in the Clouds — The Most Extraordinary 

Phenomena of Modern Times, 



(Copyright, New York Herald, Published by Special Permission,) 

A "holy man" from India has come to New York to 
make converts to his faith, which is "Love for all men." 
Baba Bharati is his name. He is a typical high caste Hin- 
doo — a Lama, who mastered English and became editor of 
a leading journal in Lahore. That was years ago, when 
Kipling, on a rival newspaper, was coming into notice 
with poems and short sketches. This city of Lahore is 
where "Kim," the hero of Kipling's greatest story, joined 
the Lama of Thibet and wandered over Hindostan in 
search of a certain holy river. 

Kipling and Baba Bharati, the Hindoo editor, were 
newspaper acquaintances, and some say Baba is the orig- 
nal of Kipling's holy man in "Kim" for this reason: 
Baba was a man of influence and a successful editor when 
he suddenly resigned his editorship and joined the ec- 
static followers of Krishna, a Hindoo deity, became an 
ascetic and retired to the wilderness, where he remained 
in holy meditation and study for twelve years. He was 
then directed to begin missionary work in the Western 
world, and he sailed for America. 

As Baba speaks and writes English with skill and flu- 
ency, he has great advantages over many Hindoos visiting 
this country. His personality is pleasing, fascinating 
and picturesque. He is a handsome man, tall, statuesque, 
dignified, with dark, large, sparkling eyes. When they 
kindle the man seems on fire with holy enthusiasm. His 
religion, he says, is summed up in the one word "Love." 
He has anger for no man, no matter how great the provo- 
cation. Every act is preceded by asking a blessing. Ev- 



WOXDEEFUL PHENOMENA. 229 

err letter or manuscript begins with a little prayer writ- 
ten at the top of the page. 

By special arrangement this extraordinary man writes 
the story of his life and faith, for the Sunday Herald. 



BY BABA BHARATI. 

From journalism to ascetism is almost an impossible 
leap. It is like jumping from pole to pole. Journalism 
means putting the whole world into your mind; ascetism 
means thrusting the whole world out of it. Journalism 
involves a minute study of men and manners; ascetism 
teaches how best to wipe out all their impressions. It is 
to dive beneath the surface of things to know their real 
causes and meanings, and the only way to dive is to for- 
get the surface. 

But a Vaishrava ascetic need not blot the world from 
his mind and necessarily repair to the jungles to perform 
his devotions. He finds Krishna, his Deity, present ev- 
erywhere, and lives in the light of his love. To him, 
without Krishna, the most densely peopled city is a wil- 
derness, and a bleak, wild stretch of waste a peopled New 
York. 

How I became an ascetic from being a journalist may 
be worth telling. I was born in January, 1858 — the pe- 
riod when the ever-memorable Indian mutiny was in its 
full, furious swing— of a "Koolen" Brahmin family, that 
is, "Brahmins of the firsl order.''' 

The family was intellectual and wealthy and for many 
generation- had produced some great men — men of con- 
spicuous individuality, ministers and leaders of society 
in the past. My lather was a magistrate, and my uncle, 
my father's younger brother, the late Honorable Onoocool 
Chunder Mookerjee, was a brilliant judge of the Calcutta 
High Court, the highest civil appointment below the 
Viceroy. 

KIPLING'S GBEAT WORK FOR INDIA. 

Y«-t Mr. Kipling has done greal work for India. What 
he has written do other European is able to preseni to the 
Western public with Buch clearness oi expression and viv- 
idness of detail. Such wide menial grasp is only possible 
lo a genius — which Kipling undoubtedly is. Both the 
West and the East ought to be grateful to him — the Wesi 



230 WONDERFUL PHENOMENA. 

especially, for no similar work lias awakened such interest 
in men and things Hindoo, in the Western mind, as 
"Kim." 

That interest has produced a thirst for more knowledge 
of India, which, I hope will sooner or later be satisfied. 
When that time comes the West will be perhaps rudely 
awakened from its pleasant dream that its civilization, 
born only yesterday, is all-powerful and is Westernizing 
the unprogressive Hindoo. 

These European dreamers will awaken to find that all 
their so-called civilization of the Hindoo is but as a layer 
of moss upon rock. In the final test the moss will van- 
ish, leaving the granite unchanged, eternal. The Hindoo 
and his spirituality are the same to-day as thousands of 
years ago. They have outlived Egyptians, Greeks and 
Romans — their systems, governments and religions. The 
Hindoos alone remain imperishable. The only«hope for 
these so-called modern civilizations is in adopting the 
spirituality of the Hindoo. His vast, all pervading spir- 
itual power is realized by all — by English and Americana 
alike. 

The magnitude of this intense belief and the vitalizing 
life of the Hindoo religion is a concrete reality felt by 
every European when he first sets foot on Indian soil. 
The very atmosphere is impregnated with vitalizing cur- 
rents of spirituality, for it is the only real lasting thing in 
the world. Your civilization, tall buildings, machinery 
and systems of government are but for a day — to-morrow 
they vanish! The spiritual remains forever. It is this 
unseen power that sways mankind and the universe. 

HOW HE WAS CONVERTED. 

With these explanations, I will relate how I began my 
search for this religion of love and life everlasting. 

I went from the Tribune, in Lahore, to edit the Punjab 
Times, and Mr. Kipling, I believe, left the Lahore Ga- 
zette for the Pioneer. Soon after I went down to Cal- 
cutta, having finished my practical training, and started 
my own paper, the Gup and Gossip, the first society paper 
in India. 

I was now very happy with my material prospects and 
surroundings, and my paper having become popular 
among Anglo-Indians and Indians, I had some fame and 
name for myself, too. 



WONDERFUL PHENOMENA. 231 

But just at this time my religious instinct began to as- 
sert itself, and very soon it overcame my passion for jour- 
nalism. I was witnessing a performance of "Chaitanya 
Lila" at the Star Theatre. Chaitanya was an incarnation 
of Krishna, the Form Manifestation of the Hindoo's ab- 
solute deity. 

He was born a little more than four hundred years ago, 
in Bengal, at Nuddia on the Ganges, about one hundred 
miles above Calcutta. He preached Krishna, the seed 
and the soul of the purest love, and of the universe, and 
while preaching he would burst forth into song in praise 
of Krishna, his Master, Friend, Father and Lover. 

THE DANCE OF ECSTASY. 

Thus singing, he would be filled with ecstasy and in the 
fulness of joy within him perform the most graceful 
dance the world has ever seen, his arms and whole body 
waving and quivering with the heaving billows, as it were, 
within his heart. He was like an ocean of divine love, 
and streams of water from many fountains would flow 
from his eyes in the shape of tears. And in those tears, 
streaming straight from his eyes to the ground, all those 
who sang and danced around him in ecstatic motion 
would be literally bathed. 

This indescribable, wondrous scene made a profound 
impression upon me. It had at last found my religion of 
love so hazily understood in boyhood, and I resolved to 
give my life to it. With this awakening all attraction for 
things material left me, and in the depth of my heart 
flowed a stream of nectar which every moment thrilled 
through my being. 

"Krishna, my beloved!" I exclaimed within myself, "I 
am thine forever. Thou art the mystery of love, the uni- 
verse is its expression, and Chaitanya their most merciful 
explanation. Merciful, Lord, because Thou art Thy 
Chaitanya Thyself, Thou earnest again as Thy own devo- 
tee to teach us the way to Thee." 

It is impossible to describe the fretting and worry of 
my soul during the few years which I had to remain in the 
world before preparing myself for the new life. At last 
the promise*! day came and I renounced (he world and it.-- 
vanities at the age of thirty-two. 

I then went to my Gooroo, Srimad Hrahmananda Bha- 
rati, and fell prostrate at his feet, lie -aid: "Rise, my 



232 WONDEBFUL PHENOMENA. 

child, and be happy for aye, for thou are liberated from all 
pain and henceforth art wedded to eternal love. Thou 
art of Krishna, and Krishna is Love." 

HIS SOJOURN IN THE WILDERNESS. 

He took me to his Gooroo, the great Jogee of Baradi, 
the perfect jogee, whom I saw for the first time. He was 
about seven feet in height, of golden color, with long mat- 
ted locks and the most handsome intellectual face. His 
two eyes shone with a piercing yet tranquil light, in which 
he read you like an open book. He told me my inmost 
thoughts and gave me his blessing. He was then 160 
years of age. A few days after I left him he gave up his 
body, sitting on his haunches and telling people the exact 
hour he would go. He expired exactly at that time, with- 
out suffering from any disease or pain. 

I then proceeded to the holy land of Brindaban, about 
a thousand miles from there, on foot. It took me about 
two months to reach my destination, but it did not mat- 
ter, for I was blessed — blessed at every step of my way. 
I saw Krishna in dreams, while awake and footing my 
way along, singing and dancing in his praise. He beck- 
oned me, his most perfectly beautiful form dissolving, as 
it were, with his entrancing smile, his newest rain cloud 
complexion illuminating the blue sky of Hindoostan with 
the effulgence of his halo. 

On the journey I had to pass through jungles in 
which I met many saints, hermits and j ogees of the high- 
est order, who possessed miraculous powers, some of 
which I had the good fortune to witness. 

Oh, the days and delights of that march to the Land of 
the Lord! What would I not give to enjoy them again? 
I was in ecstasy! ecstasy! I lay on bare, hard ground in 
those forests, with my head pillowed upon the roots of 
trees, and slept as never emperor or millionaire slept— 
slept like a baby, rising with the rosy morn, my spirit 
fresh and soaring as a lark, singing hymns to my Lord. 

It is now twelve years since that day of renunciation, 
and in those twelve years I was a thousand times happier 
than on the happiest days I ever knew while I was in the 
world with the world. 

After preaching and singing the praises of Krishna and 
Chaitanya for ten years I retired to live for good in a cot 



WONDERFUL PHENOMENA. 233 

with the meek hermits, on the edge of the Lake of Radha. 
the lake blessed by Radha with the virtue of imparting 
divine love to those bathing in it. 

LIFE IN THE WILDERNESS. 

It would seem that in India , as elsewhere in the distant 
corners of the world, man is most powerfully swayed by 
the things unseen and unknown. Hence the vast follow- 
ing of Krishna and Buddha. It would also seem that in 
religion, as in music, once in centuries a master appears 
touching chords that sweep from the soul to infinitude. 

Holy men living in the Indian wilderness take no 
thought of the future. It is like going to the Adiron- 
dacks leaving all your baggage behind. The holy men 
have stations at various points and routes of travel by 
which they journey from jungle to jungle. As in "Kim/' 
the holy man has neither money nor arms — only his beg- 
ging bowl and rosary; and his only food is that given him 
as alms. He joins other pilgrims and they pass their days 
and nights in huts or the open air. 

On the slopes of the greater Himalayas, in caves and 
stone huts, are to be met saints and adepts of Hindoo 
mystic teachings — as also in Brindaban, a region about 
the area of the state of Maryland, which for centuries has 
been the abode of holy men. 

I spent my twelve years now in the wilderness of the 
Himalayas, now on the plains and again in the forest of 
Brindaban, in Muttra, near Agra, the city of Taj Mahal, 
and I was in the jungles off and On for seven years. In 
Bangal I saw a jogee sitting before a fire. I told him I 
was hungry and had no food. He shut his eyes for a mo- 
ment and lo! an immense roast of root-fruits a foot long 
appeared. They were baked and the jogee told me to 
eat. The repast was delicious beyond expression, a kind 
of life sustaining sweet potato and confectionery com- 
bined. 

You should bear in mind that the holy men have no 
money and they never worry over future possibilities. 
Their minds are lost in the deep rapture of spiritual 
things. Even in the wildest forest I had no fear. 

But one day, to test niv fail h. I penetrated a thick 
jungle until far from any human abode, when 1 became 
faint with hunger and fell into a dose. I had not slept 
more than five minutes when a voice called me. 



234 WONDEKFUL PHENOMENA. 

Opening my eyes I beheld a man and his wife standing 
before me with a large brass dish heaped with food, cakes, 
brown sugar, vegetable currie and a pot of water. 

As I was eating in thanksgiving to the Lord, the man 
said: "Holy one, I saw you from a distance, and was sure 
you were hungry. I went two miles to my house, and my 
wife prepared the meal, which we have brought, but I 
must ask pardon for the delay, as the distance is consid- 
erable and it took time to cook the food." 

Again giving thanks I resumed my journey, but had 
not gone far when the thought came to me like a thunder- 
clap that human beings did not live in that jungle, and 
that the man and his wife must have been spirits from 
heaven. Besides, he spoke of going two miles to prepare 
the meal, and I knew that I had slept but five minutes. 

In great agitation I retraced my steps to where I had 
eaten, and could nowhere find man or woman. He said 
his house was in the neighborhood. I traversed the jun- 
gle for miles in all directions and found no sign of habita- 
tion or even human footprints. Then I knew that the 
Lord had been with me and fed me. From that hour I 
was reassured that I would be provided for at all times. 

When night came I slept under trees or in a hut, if I 
chanced to find one. Every hour filled my soul with the 
joy of spiritual thoughts. My G-ooroo had given me mys- 
tic words and I repeated them continually. They opened 
my mind to the wonders of the spiritual world, and truth 
was revealed to me. In happy dreams I saw Krishna 
smiling and comforting me. Sometimes, while walking 
the jungle roads, I saw Krishna in mid-air, playing on his 
entrancing flute to cheer me on my way. 

PKAYING IN THE CLOUDS. 

Up in the Himalayas among the highest mountains in 
the vastness of that awful solitude I saw holy men among 
the very clouds sitting in attitudes of devotion. They 
welcomed me and gave me food and shelter. 

One day while walking alone I heard the roar of a tiger. 
Although I did not at that time care for my life, I soon 
grew afraid, for the tiger was almost within springing 
distance and coming toward me like a whirlwind. I ran. 
but soon stopped, realizing how ridiculous it was to fear 
even wild beasts when my Lord was with me. 

The instant I stopped I saw a very holy man appear. 



WONDERFUL PHENOMENA. 235 

He seemed to come out of the ground. He had long, 
matted locks and wore a strip of cloth around his waist. 
He smiled and beckoned me toward him and said no beast 
would harm me in the sacred mountains — the land of the 
holy ones. Even tigers, he said, were subject to their rule 
and would harm no good man. 

Continuing, he asked me whither I was going. I told 
him. Then he said, "Turn back and proceed to the for- 
est of Brindaban — that is your place/' I returned as ha 
directed, for it was Krishna who had come in the guise of 
a holy man. 

In Radhakund, in the forest of Brindaban, I lived in a 
hut with many other hermits. They were the holiest 
men I have ever seen. They live a gentle, austere, simple 
life; rise at four o'clock in the morning and perform their 
ablutions in a sacred lake there; then they sit at their de- 
votions, repeating mystic words, symbolical of the Lord's 
love; chanting sacred hymns and reading the Scriptures, 
followed by songs of joy and worship. 

THE DANCE OF ECSTASY. 

Then they dance. 

In the ecstasy of their movements, so full of grace and 
beauty, they see visions of Krishna performing and reper- 
forming his sacred acts of five thousand years ago. 
Meanwhile the holy men keep on dancing and counting 
their beads. They fast by day. At night they go to the 
houses and camps of the neighborhood and beg a little 
bread, which, with water, is all the food they have during 
the twenty-four hours. 

After eating a morsel of food they again sing and dance 
and listen to Scriptural readings until two o'clock in the 
morning. 

Then they sleep — but only for two hours. And this is 
all the sleep they get during an entire day and night, 
which, with the little bread and water, supports life, be- 
cause the holy men are strengthened by spiritual 
thoughts. 

They really perform much physical labor. The danc- 
ing alone would soon exhaust an ordinary man, despite his 
full meals and long hours of sleep. With holy men it is 
diifercnt. They feed on spiritual thoughts, and axe in 
Btich a state of pure happiness and exaltation that there is 
perfect digestion. Hence, the process of nutrition is car- 



236 WONDERFUL PHENOMENA. 

ried on to absolute perfection. There is no waste or 
shrinkage of tissue, as with men thinking of wealth and 
earthly possessions, feeding their stomachs with gross 
food followed by imperfect assimilation and torpidity of 
mind. 

These hermits are the meekest people in the world. 
They are the real Christians of the type known in the days 
of the Savior. If you abuse or wound them, no matter 
how painfully, to the last they bless you, not in a spirit of 
religious fanaticism, but out of the depths of their hearts. 
And while you persecute them they pray God to put love 
into your heart. They have no property, except the 
scanty garments on their back, a drinking bowl which 
costs but a farthing, and their rosary. 

With these simple belongings they make vast journe3^s 
over India, winning the respect and love of all fair-mind- 
ed men. It was with these holy ones that I spent my 
days in meditation and study of the spiritual life during 
twelve years of apprenticeship to a study of the faith. I 
am yet only one of their most unworthy servants. 

W r ORSHIP OF KRISHNA EXPLAINED. 

There recently appeared a short notice of my arrival in 
this country, with brief particulars of my mission in the 
United States. It was said that my mission is to make 
converts in the United States to the worship of Krishna, 
a "sect which is a branch of Buddhism/' an incorrect 
statement which ought to be corrected. It is Buddhism 
which is a branch of Hindooism, and my sect, Vaishnav- 
ism which is real Hindooism, has nothing to do with 
Buddhism. Vaishnavism, however, is a religion which 
any person can accept if that person is spiritually bent. 
It is a religion of love and its creed is simplicity itself. 

Put in a nutshell, that creed asks us all — of all races — 
to love that incarnation of divine love itself — Sri Krishna 
• — with a whole heart, as either a son or a servant or a 
friend or a wife. The human heart being habituated to 
this feeling of love, the practice is easy, and when that 
practice attains fruition by being developed into a natural 
feeling the highest blessedness is attained. 

My humble mission is to offer it to the Western people 
to examine it. Whether they will accept it, if worthy of 
acceptance, is a matter which I leave to my Lord, Sri 
Krishna. 



WONDERFUL PHENOMENA. 237 

America is tlie land of freedom — freedom of body, 
mind, and speech — and America is the land, too, of spir- 
itual and religious freedom, both politically and socially 
speaking. The time, happily, has long gone by when re- 
ligious bigotry ruled the minds the the American people, 
both high and low — when they looked at nen-Christian 
peoples through the eyes of prejudiced priests. 

DEFENCE OF THE HINDOO. 

The time has gone when all men and women here be- 
lieved in the Christian missionary's story of the shocking 
practices of the heathen Hindoo in the name of religion — 
of the human sacrifices and mothers throwing babies into 
the jaws of crocodiles, of the immoral gods whom the 
Hindoo worships. Knowledge of Hindoo religious prin- 
ciples has grown more and more in Western minds, thanks 
to the labors of European savans in the domain of Ori- 
ental theology and metaphysics. 

It is certainly due to the researches of scholars like 
Professors Max Muller and Goldstucker that the cultured 
Westerners have learned to-day to respect the spiritual 
and philosophical thoughts of the once hated Hindoo. 

The contents of the "Vedas," the "Upanishads" and 
the "Bhagavad Gita" have been translated into English, 
and the cultivated Western mind, ever anxious to soar 
into higher nights of absolute thought, has not only de- 
voured the contents, but found in many cases great satis- 
faction in the truths and principles they embody. 

The preacher of the "Bhagavad Gita/' or the "Song 
Celestial," as Sir Edwin Arnold calls it which contains all 
the cream of the philosophical portion of Vedic thought, 
is Sri Krishna, the Hindoo's perfect incarnation of the 
Supreme Deity, the hero of the great Hindoo epic, the 
"Mahahharatta," the guide, philosopher and friend of the 
great warrior Arjuna in the greatest of battle fields within 
historical or mythical memory — the Kurukshetra. 

In hcriosm or wisdom, in love or in charity, in justice 
or in mercy, in spirituality or morality, or in miraculous 
powers, no human inoarnal ion, ancient or modern, can 

ever equal Sri Krishna, [f Christian bigotry or atheistic 

Bkepticism dare to call Krishna a myth, the Hindoo can 

answer by calling Christ a myth, too. 

How can the data, he would naturally argue, of Euro- 
pean history— or Bebrew, or Egyptian, or Etonian, for 



£3S WONDEEFTJL PHENOMENA. 

that matter — be proved more reliable than those of the 
Hindoos, who have for thousands of years kept their sa* 
cred scriptures and histories in perfect preservation all 
over the land? 

This Krishna is the deity of the Vaishnava, and an im- 
age of this deity he worships every day before he begins 
any temporal duty or even breaks his fast. He offers ev- 
ery morning and evening fragrant flowers and the sacred 
leaves of the tulsi plant, smeared with sandalwood paste, 
to the "lotus feet" of the image, accompanied by certain 
formulas of words and ceremonies, as enjoined in his holy 
scriptures. 

This form of worship of Sri Krishna is universally the 
same in Hindoo India — the image is symbolical, and its 
worship is essentially mental, the outward forms being 
only adopted in order to impress the ignorant masses who 
cannot grasp the abstract idea of the Supreme Deity. 

The Western mind ought to appreciate the necessity of 
such outward formulas and ceremonies, if it only looks at 
the forms and ceremonies of its own church in order to 
impress upon the average Christian mind the sacredness 
of functions inside the house of God. As to the objec- 
tion to image worship, the Catholics have it, and it will 
not hold much water with Protestants either, so long as 
they raise statues of heroes and offer homage to them 
some way or other. That is image worship, whether you 
bare or nod your head to a statue or worship it with 
flowers. 

VIETUE IS IMMOETAL, HE SAYS. 

Appreciation of worth is homage or worship in the 
least pronounced sense, and you cannot prevent the. 
growth of this virtue in a cultivated mind, Oriental or 
Occidental. The Krishna worshiping Hindoo does noth- 
ing but this — only his glowing imagination and keenly 
appreciative and grateful heart does it in a form which 
strikes as somewhat elaborate and unnecessary one whose 
cold imagination has no chance of improvement so long 
as it is fed by an education whose sheet anchor is sheer 
self-concenit. 

By this worship he only appreciates the worth of 
Krishna, who was born in human form and flourished fivo 
thousand years ago — Krishna, who from his birth to hia 
"ascension to heaven" was the ideal of ideal heroes of all 



WONDERFUL PHENOMENA. 239 

mankind, was absolutely perfect in every virtue which he 
possessed or humanity can ever hope to possess. 

The annals of Krishna's life and exploits have been 
handed down through the corridars of time by the ancient 
sages, who saw him and his deeds with their own eyes, in 
hundreds of different books agreeing with one another 
in every essential detail of the "Lila," manuscript copies 
of which will be found preserved in every Hindoo family 
throughout India. 

SIMILAR TO CHRIST'S TEACHINGS. 

What I think will strike the Western students of these 
scriptures of the Vaishnavas — as the worshipers of Krish- 
na are called — are the startling similarities of the ethical 
and moral teachings of both Krishna and Christ on main 
points. 

My chief object in writing this article is to ask the edu- 
cated men of this country to study these "heathen" books 
not only for their own benefit, but also for the benefit of 
the ignorant masses from whose minds should be driven 
out once for all the notion instilled therein by some big- 
oted Christian missionaries that the Hindoos are hopeless 
idolaters, who revel in thick ignorance of matters spir- 
itual. 

They need also to be told that they should not judge 
a foreigner prejudicially because he belongs to a different 
form of religion than that prevalent in this country; that 
if it be that he who lives and acts like a Christian is a 
truer follower of Christ than one who only belongs to the 
Christian church, 1 > n t docs not care to act up to Christian 
principles, the average Hindoo is more a Christian than a 
heathen; that, therefore, to send missionaries to India t»; 
spread the light of Christianity among the Hindoos is 
like. carrying coals to Newcastle; and, finally, that to bap- 
tize with Jordan water and kneel down and pray before a. 
wooden image is equivalent to worshiping the image of 
Krishna with incantations, flowers and Ganges water, as 
the Vaishnava does every day. 



The Law of Cause and Effect. 



A Lecture Delivered Before a Chicago Audience, by 

C. W. Leadbeater, the Great Psychic, 

of London, England. 



Our subject for this evening is in reality a necessary 
part of that of which I was speaking to you last Sunday. I 
explained that what we usually call man's life is simply 
one day in the real and larger life, and that when what we 
call death comes to him he simply lays himself down to 
sleep at the conclusion of his life-day. You will see very 
readily that the benefit to be derived from this scheme of 
development in successive lives is contingent upon the 
continued existence of the same great general laws. It is 
only because the great Law of Divine Justice is always the 
same, that the experience gained in one incarnation is use- 
ful in the next. So that belief in this law of cause and 
effect is in fact an integral part of the doctrine of reincar- 
nation. Its influence in reality is even more far-reaching 
than the next physical life; it extends also into the after- 
death conditions, and a full comprehension of its work- 
ing is of the greatest importance to us. 

As to this law of divine justice, there have been various 
opinions at various times. Some people when they 
looked out into the world, and saw what was happening, 
have wondered whether there was a law of justice at ail. 
I do not deny that from a purely physical point of view 
we are sometimes unable fully to see the action of this 
great law. Yet I know that it exists, and that when we 
do not see its working the fault lies in our own blindness, 
and not in the action of the law. We may be quite cer- 
tain that the law exists, and yet fully prepared to admit 



THE LAW OF CAUSE AXD EFFECT. 241 

that it is not always possible for us down here to see the 
whole of its working. Although I put this law before 
you as a hypothesis for your consideration, it is much 
more than a hypothesis for those who are studying from 
the theosophical standpoint. Very many of them know 
by the use of faculties beyond the physical that reincarna- 
tion is a definite fact. In the same way there are very 
many students who know certainly that this law of cause 
and effect is in action. But we must realize that this 
law is working itself out upon other planes besides the 
physical, and so is not to be gauged only from one point 
of view. Suppose we were looking at the underside of 
some very beautiful tapestry; you will comprehend that, 
being only able to see the underside, we should have a 
very imperfect idea of the pattern. Suppose further that 
the tapestry had not been finished, then still less should 
we be able to form a clear conception of the design. That 
is precisely how we stand with regard to the mighty law of 
karma. We only see the underside of it from the physical 
plane because so much of its action belongs to higher lev- 
els. Indeed we might expect scarcely ever to be able to 
trace it fully from this side. Once more, as in the case 
of reincarnation, if you will provisionally accept this idea 
of divine justice, you will find that it is a more satisfac- 
tory theory of life than any other, and you may gradually 
come to hold it as firmly as we do. 

You will observe that there are only certain hypoth- 
eses. Either everything is only blind chance, or we are 
ruled by caprice, or we are under a regular divine law, and 
our surroundings are the result of our actions, good or 
evil, in previous lives. You will admit that you would 
like to believe in a law of divine justice. There must 
be a reason for that feeling that man has of always de- 
siring justice. If God is infinitely greater than we, He 
must surely have this quality. We believe in Theosophy 
that it is a rational necessity that this law should ex- 
ist and we sec in every direction instances of its workings. 
I can explain it only to a limited extent, because il needs 
long and careful study. But the broad outline we OUghl 
to be able to give, and then the details can be gathered 
from the literature. Never think that when you have 
heard a lecture on a theosophical subject you know all 
about it. You have only to take up BOme of OUT hooks to 
see how very much more there is to be known, for in one 



242 THE LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 

lecture it is not possible to give all available information 
even on one point. 

The first great characteristic that I should like you to 
grasp about this law is that it is automatic in its action, 
and that therefore there is no possibility of escape from it. 
Put aside all theories that man will be judged for his ac- 
tions, and punished or rewarded for them. That inevit- 
ably suggests to us the thought of an earthly judge, who 
may be prejudiced or partially informed, or may be more 
lenient in one case and more severe in another. We pre- 
fer rather to speak of the law of cause and effect, because 
we hold that this is a law which brings us the result of our 
actions with an automatic precision. In mechanics we 
know that action and reaction are equal, and that no force 
can ever be lost, and we find that precisely the same rule 
obtains on these higher levels. If you put so much ener- 
gy into a machine you will receive back from it so much 
work as a result. If you put a certain amount of energy 
into a word, deed or thought you will obtain from that 
also a certain result, for the law of the conservation of en- 
ergy holds good upon higher planes just as it does upon 
this. 

If you put a certain amount of force into a steam en- 
gine, you expect to get a definite proportion back in the 
shape of work — not all of it, naturally, because some goes 
in friction and some is thrown off in the form of heat, but 
still a fair proportion. If you do not receive back from 
your engine what you know you may reasonably expect, 
you at once look for a defect in your machine; it would 
never occur to you to say that the law of the conservation 
of energy is false. But when exactly the same law is 
working on higher planes, people who find an individual 
instance in which they cannot see that evil flows from evil 
and that good follows good, seem often to affirm wildly 
that no law of justice exists, instead of blaming them- 
selves for their own short-sightedness, or tranquilly realr 
izing that we cannot expect always to see how this law 
works out its results, because they are not always immedi- 
ate, and the time occupied may often extend far beyond 
our physical purview. Often forces set in motion in one 
life have not time to work themselves out in that incarna- 
tion or even in the next, but they will inevitably be 
worked out oome time. We are to-day to a large extent 



THE LAW OF CAUSE AXD EFFECT. 243 

the products of the thoughts, surroundings and the teach- 
ings of our childhood, even though the details of that life 
may be forgotten. Just as to-day we are bearing the re- 
sults of yesterday and the day before, so precisely is it 
with the larger day, the incarnation. We have made our- 
selves what we are, and we have made our circumstances 
what they are. As we have sown in the past, so are we 
reaping now; and as we are sowing now, so infallibly shall 
we reap in the future. 

It is especially important to emphasize the truth that 
this Divine Law is inexorable, because a good deal of the 
religious teaching of the present day distinctly includes a 
theory that we may escape from the consequences of our 
actions. In Theosophy we consider that a very danger- 
ous doctrine, not only because it is fundamentally, inaccu- 
rate, but because of the many unsound conclusions which 
are deduced from it. The idea suggested is that by doing 
wrong the man has simply incurred a debt, and that this 
debt may just as well be paid by someone else as by the 
sinner himself — or rather that the sinner cannot himself 
pay, and so must shuffle off his responsibility. This sim- 
ile of the debt is one that we have sometimes employed in 
theosophical writing, but it seems to me liable to very se- 
rious misunderstanding. A much truer analogy would 
be that of a man who wishes to be an athlete and is train- 
ing himself for a race. In order to acquire sufficient 
strength and agility he must develop certain muscles, and 
for that purpose he needs a certain training. It would 
not at all serve that purpose if someone else did it for him. 
If we wish to become perfect men physically we must take 
much trouble to develop those parts of the body which we 
have hitherto neglected, and we must rest others which 
we have overworked. The physical condition of the av- 
erage man is no inapt symbol of his moral condition. 
Many muscles are almost atrophied for want of use, while 
other part- of the body — the nervous system, for instance 
— have been seriously injured by improper use. From 
the standpoint of the physical we have committed many 
sins against our own bodies, and we musi atone for them; 
if we want to become perfect men physically we musi go 
through many wearisome exercises and Dial-, which 
would not have been necessary if we had kepi our bodies 
properly and evenly developed. Others can help us, by 



244 THE LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 

telling us what to do and how best to do it, but others 
cannot take the exercise for us. It is not like the liquida- 
tion of a debt, because in addition to bearing the result of 
wrong done in the past, the man must in bearing it de- 
velop strength for the future. He must develop perfect 
moral qualities in the same way as he would develop per- 
fect muscles — by exercising them. He must make the 
necessary effort to put things right again. No one else 
can do it for him, but happily many may help him by ad- 
vice and sympathy and affectionate encouragement. This 
law of cause and effect works just as do other laws of Na- 
ture, and if we can recognize that it will save us much 
trouble. If you put your hand into the fire, and it is 
burnt, you do not say "God punished me for putting my 
hand into the fire." You consider it a natural conse- 
quence of your action, and you know that anyone who un- 
derstands physics could explain to you along scientific 
lines exactly what had happened to you, and why you suf- 
fered. He would tell you that incandescent matter is vi- 
brating at an exceedingly rapid rate, that such a rate of 
vibration impinging upon the tissues of your hand had 
torn them apart, and so had produced the wound that we 
call a burn. But there is no special Divine interposition 
in that, though it takes place under the operation of those 
laws of Nature which are the expression of the Divine 
Will on the physical plane. 

We hold that sorrow and suffering flow from sin just 
precisely in that way, under the direct working of natural 
law. It may be said, perhaps, that obviously the good 
man does not always reap his reward of good result, nor 
does the wicked man always suffer. Not always immedi- 
ately; not always within our ken; but assuredly eventually 
and inexorably. If we could see the future, if we could 
even see the whole of the present, we should understand 
this fully. We shall see more clearly that this must be so 
if we define exactly what we mean by good and evil. Our 
religious brothers would tell us that that was good which 
was in accordance with God's will, and that that was evil 
which was in opposition to it. The scientific man would 
say that that was good which helped evolution, and what- 
ever hindered it was evil. Those two men are in reality 
saying exactly the same thing; for God's will for man u 
evolution, and when that is clearly realized all conflict be- 



THE LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 245 

tween religion and science is at once ended. Anything 
therefore which is against the evolution of humanity as a 
whole is against the Divine will. We see at once that 
when a man struggles to gain anything for himself at the 
expense of others he is distinctly doing evil, and it is evil 
because it is against the interest of the whole. Therefore 
the only true gain is that which is a gain for the race as 
a whole, and the man who gains something without cost 
or wrong to any one is raising the whole race somewhat in 
the process. He is moving in the direction of evolution, 
while the other man is moving against it. 

Take a simple illustration. Suppose that I have here 
a great weight suspended from the ceiling by a rope. If I 
exert a certain force in pushing against this weight, we 
know by the laws of mechanics that it pushes back against 
my hand with exactly the same amount of force. We 
find that that same law of mechanics holds good on the 
higher planes just as it does here. If a man exerts his 
strength against the Divine order, he disturbs the equi- 
librium of nature, and that equilibrium infallibly read- 
justs itself at the expense of the man who disturbs it. 
The power of the current of the Divine will is so much 
greater than that of any human will which may attempt 
to deflect it that it sweeps him inevitably on, and it is 
only he who suffers, not the Divine scheme. He cannot 
delay the current, but he may cause a little temporary 
disturbance and foam upon its surface. He is swept 
along with it in any case, but he can go on in two ways. 
He can intelligently observe its direction and swim with 
it, and by doing so he will not only progress with ease and 
comfort himself, but will also (which is much more im- 
portant) be able to extend a helping hand to others. On 
the other hand lie may set himself against it, through a 
foolish misunderstanding of his own interests. He will 
still be carried on in spite of his struggles, but with a 
great deal of trouble and pain to himself, and perhaps of 
hindrance to others also. Thai is precisely what the 
wicked man is doing. He will be Bwepl along more slowly 
and with a great deal of sorrow and Buffering for himself 
and others, hm he musi evolve. 

If we can grasp the grand idea that there i^ no possi- 
bility of final destruction, hm the eertainty of final sue- 
cess for all, because that is Gtod'fl will for them, we shall 



246 THE LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 

at once recognize the utter futility, and madness of selfish- 
ness. There is no feeble hope that a few may be saved, 
but the magnificent certainty that none can by any possi- 
bility be lost. 

I have sometimes wondered how modern orthodoxy can 
speak of Christ as the Savior of the world, and yet in the 
same brea.th assert that He does nor. save it, that He does 
not succeed in saving one in ten thousand of its inhabit- 
ants, and has to yield all the rest to the Devil! Would 
that be considered a successful effort if we were speaking 
of any kind of human attempt? Such a doctrine is a 
blasphemy; cast it out from your stock of religious ideas. 
We bring a grander gospel and we preach a nobler creed 
than that; for we know that this evolution will succeed 
and not fail — that it will be a grand and glorious success. 
and that every soul in it shall eventually attain its goal. 

It is only the ignorant who struggles, and even he must 
yield in the end. He will struggle against the evolution- 
ary current in one life — perhaps even in more than one, 
but his soul will learn its lesson, will observe the inevit- 
able connection between cause and effect, and will strive 
to control its vehicles more efficiently. Let us see a little 
how this works. In the first lecture I mentioned the 
planes of nature and explained that man had bodies cor- 
responding to them. We have to remember that this law 
of cause and effect is acting with regard to those planes as 
well as to this. If the man has strong emotions, those 
represent forces which are producing their effect in the 
astral body. If he has good mental development, that 
represents a force belonging to his mental body, which is 
inevitably producing results also. 

Suppose a man finds himself what we call an emotional 
person, easily swayed either by feelings of affection or by 
annoyance. That man has an emotional nature, a readily 
impressible astral body which he brought over from a pre- 
vious life. He need not, however, carry it on with him to 
another. A man who finds himself inclined to irritabil- 
ity, for example, may treat himself and train himself defi- 
nitely with a view to the future. If he lets himself go 
and allows his passion to dominate him, he encourages his 
astral body to indulge in those violent vibrations, he sets 
up a habit in it which becomes every time more difficult 
to conquer. If on the other hand he sets himself to try 



THE LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 247 

to curb his anger, he gradually gets these vibrations under 
his control, and each time it is a little easier than before. 
It often happens that a man who is irritated says some- 
thing which he afterwards regrets. He resolves not to do 
this again, but when the next provocation comes, he does 
not remember in time; perhaps for several more times he 
will pull himself up just after he has spoken the angry 
word. But there comes a time when he remembers in the 
very act of speaking, and checks himself abruptly, and 
then his victory is half won. Presently he stops himself 
just before he speaks the word, and then he has won the 
victory as far as the physical plane is concerned, though 
he has still to go on and control the feeling itself — to 
prevent even the vibration in the astral body. That is 
the way in which a man learns to break through a bad 
habit. 

Fortunately we may set up good habits as readily as 
bad ones, if we will only take the trouble. We may try 
definitely to set up within ourselves good habits of help- 
fulness, unselfishness, perseverance, punctuality and so 
on; and then we shall be born with these as inherent qual- 
ities upon our next return to earth. That is a little bit 
of character building which anyone may undertake, and 
the trouble it costs him will be the best investment he 
ever made. When we understand that the mental body 
and astral body are only expressions of the man, we shall 
realize that in learning to control them he is acquiring 
definite qualities and building them into the causal body, 
so that next time he will have those qualities as part of his 
stock-in-trade, as it were, with which he recommences his 
business of evolution. The man sows certain thoughts 
and. actions, and later on he reaps the results. Between 
the spring sowing and the autumn reaping he may have 
worn out one suit of clothes and put on another in the 
shape of a new body, but he remains the same man and he 
reaps his harvest just the same. 

We find by investigation that, broadly speaking, the 
man's thoughts in one life build his character for the 
next, and that his actions in the one life produce his sur- 
roundings in the next. A strong desire along certain 
lines which remains entirely unfulfilled during one lif< 
will often produce a capacity along those lines in the 
next. For example, I have known people who are very 



248 THE LAW OF CAUSE AKD EFFECT. 

musical in the sense that they enjoy music intensely, but 
yet have no faculty for producing it, no facility in per- 
formance and no opportunity for acquiring it, although 
they earnestly wish for it. Npw that strong desire will 
certainly produce its results in the next incarnation. As- 
suredly those people will next time bring back with them 
the capacity for musical training, and will have the oppor- 
tunity for it. They will not be born with the training 
already acquired, as Mozart was; he must have had that 
training in his previous life; but at least it will bring 
them back with a vehicle which will readily respond to 
the training. Thus aspirations or desires of one life are 
transmuted into capacities in the next. 

Just so if the man is constantly thinking some thought 
over and. over again, he sets up a habit or tendency of 
thought. Whenever a man thinks strongly he creates a 
thought-form— that is to say he sets up a certain rate of 
vibration, and the energy thus generated draws round it- 
self a vehicle of finer matter which it ensouls, and thus 
creates a sort of storage-battery of force. Now that 
thought-form hovers about the man and constantly reacts 
upon him. We know from telepathic experiments what 
is the tendency of a thought when it acts upon another 
person. It will work upon the corresponding matter of 
his mental body, and tend to set up in that its own rate 
of vibration, so that it provokes in the mind of the recip- 
ient a reproduction of the thought which was in the mind 
of the sender. That would be the action on another per- 
son; but we often forget that a man is constantly produc- 
ing a very similar action on himself. Clairvoyants see 
every man surrounded by a cloud of his habitual thoughts, 
and of course these thoughts are all the while reacting 
upon him. To every man there come times when he is 
not thinking strongly when for the moment his mental 
activities are in abeyance; and at all such times ever pres- 
ent thought-forms would react upon him, so that any 
strong thought which the man has once sent forth will 
always tend to reproduce itself and make him think a 
similar thought whenever his mind is for the moment 
vacant. 

You can see how this might work in the case of a sen- 
sualist, and how very likely the man would be to yield to 
such a returning thought because he has been in the 
habit of giving way to similar impressions before. The 



THE LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 249 

man himself sent out the idea in the first place, and per- 
haps has never thought of it since, but when the oppor- 
tunity occurs it reacts upon him. So it may become a 
sort of tempting demon like those invented by the dis- 
eased imagination of medieval monks. Most unf ortunate- 
ly it may act upon others as well as upon himself, and that 
is the awful responsibility of yielding to evil thought. 
He may become the centre of moral contagion and do 
grievous harm to thousands of whose very existence he is 
ignorant. 

Again if a man dwells often upon a certain thought it 
will presently translate itself into action. By thinking it 
so often he sets up a decided tendency, and if circum- 
stances prevent him from carrying it out in action in this 
life he will probably do so in his next incarnation. Thus 
it is that we find some children born with criminal ten- 
dencies with an apparently instinctive desire to steal or 
to be cruel — because they indulged in covetous or re- 
vengeful thoughts in the dim distance of the past. Hap- 
pily the same law holds with regard to good thoughts. 
How often we long to do some good deed, but from lack 
of means or time or strength we are utterly unable to ac- 
complish it. Yet the earnest desire is not without its ef- 
fect and the opportunity which is denied to us in this life, 
because our past was not such as to deserve it, will assur- 
edly be ours in the future, won for us by the very energy 
poured out in the yearning of to-day. 

Along the very same lines is conscience built up in the 
man. He does a wrong or- foolish act, and through the 
inevitable action of the law he suffers for it sooner or 
later, and through that very suffering the soul acquires 
tin- knowledge that that action is wrong, and musl not be 
repeated. Thus out of painful experiences the conscience 
in man is formed, the soul learning perhaps a different 
lesson in each of ils lives, and so gradually developing 
a comprehensive and educated conscience. Usually ho 
cannot impress upon hi.- physical brain the detailed his- 
tory of hi- previous mistake nor the reason for hi.- conclu- 
sion; hut he is able to send through very definitely that 
conclusion itself, in the shape of a linn COnvictiOD that a 
certain action is to he avoided. 

It i- accessary to realize that we have all of ue had 
many lives, Dot onlj one or t'.\'>: and that since we have 



250 THE LAW OF CAUSE AHD EFFECT 

gradually raised ourselves to this level, those previous in- 
carnations were all probably less advanced in many ways 
than our present one. We must all have been savages in 
the past — and probably not once, but many times. So 
we must have done a great many evil and undesirable 
things, and we must each one of us have a tolerably heavy 
bill to pay. So there arises the question how we are to 
clear off such an accumulation of evil result. In such 
lives as the more thoughtful among us are living now, we 
may reasonably hope that there is a preponderance of 
good over evil; but undoubtedly the reverse must have 
been the case in very many of our earlier existences, and 
if we had to bear in any one life the whole of the suffering, 
due to us on the entire account, we might well find it suffi- 
cient to crush us to the earth, and prevent us from evolv- 
ing at all. Since the object of the whole scheme is man's 
evolution, that obviously cannot be permitted; and conse- 
quently we find that there comes into operation hore a 
certain law of distribution or adaptation assigning to 
each successive life such proportion of the debt as can 
best be paid in it. This modification does not in the 
least change or reduce the results of our past deeds, but 
it does so apportion them as to prevent them from over- 
whelming us. 

The Hindus give to this law of cause and effect the 
name of Karma, and they also apply the same term to the 
results which under it follow from action of any kind. 
They say that of this karma there are three kinds: 

1. There is the Samchita or "piled-up" karma. — the 
whole mass that still remains behind the man not yet 
worked out — the entire unpaid balance of the debit and 
credit account. 

2. There is the Prarabdha or "beginning" karma — the 
amount apportioned to the man at the commencement of 
each life — his destiny for that life, as it were. 

3. There is the Kriomana karma, that which we are 
now, by our actions in this present life, making for the 
future. 

That second type, the Prarabdha karma, is the only des- 
tiny which can be said to exist for man. That is what an 
astrologer might foretell for us — that we have appor- 
tioned to us so much good and evil fortune — so much of 
the result of the good and evil actions of our past lives 



THE LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 251 

which will react on us in this. But we should remember 
always that this result of previous action can never com- 
pel us to action in the present. It may put us under con- 
ditions in which it will be difficult to avoid an act, but it 
can never compel us to commit it. The man of ordinary 
development would probably yield to the circumstances 
and commit the act; but he may assert his free will, rise 
superior to his circumstances, and gain a victory and a 
step in evolution. So with a good action; no man is forced 
into that either, but an opportunity is given to him. If 
he takes it certain results will follow — not necessarily a 
happy or a wealthy life next time, but certainly a life of 
wider opportunity. That seems to be one of the things 
that are quite certain — that the man who has done well in 
this life has always the opportunity of doing still better 
in the next. That is nature's reward for good work — the 
opportunity to do more work. Of course wealth is a 
great opportunity, so the reward often comes in that 
form, but the essence of the reward is the opportunity, 
and not the pleasure which may be supposed to accom- 
pany the wealth. 

Sometimes when men first realize the inexorability of 
the Divine law of cause and effect, they feel themselvs 
helpless in the grasp of a destiny against which it is useless 
to struggle. Yet this should not be at all the result of in- 
creased knowledge. The more we know of the laws of 
nature, the more intelligently we can use them; and re- 
member, it is only because they are invariable and inexor- 
able that we are able to depend upon them and utilize 
them. Where would be the use of the magnificent power- 
works at Niagara if the law of gravitation were only occa- 
sional in its action, if water sometimes ran downhill and 
sometimes did not? So it is just the invariability of this 
law of karma which enables us to employ it in character- 
building. If a man finds an impure thought arising un- 
bidden within his mind now, he knows that it is because 
he allowed such thoughts to play through his mind long 
ago; and in that very knowledge lies his hope for the fu- 
ture. If he keeps his thought high and pure in this life, 
in the next he will assuredly reap the result of his effort, 
and will have a mind-hodv incapable of responding to the 
vibrations of the low and impure. 

Along the same line of action we can modify not only 



252 THE LAW OP CAUSE AND EFFECT. 

character but circumstances, and can arrange for our- 
selves the certainty of plenty of opportunities to do good. 
If we devote ourselves earnestly now to doing all the good 
work within reach, we shall certainly have all the more 
opportunity next time. 

Eemember that although we can never recall the force 
which we have thrown into any thought or action, we 
can often modify its effect by sending out a new force of 
different type. If you strike a ball, for example, as a.t 
croquet, you set it rolling in a certain direction with a 
certain amount of energy. No human power can take that 
force out of the ball but of course you may stop it, by op- 
posing to it a new force of equal power in the opposite di- 
rection. Supposing that, while the ball is rolling, we 
strike it from one side, it will then adopt a new path, 
which is neither that of the original force nor that of the 
newly-applied one, but a diagonal between the two, the 
exact direction of which can be determined by means of 
what is called the parallelogram of forces. It is exactly 
the same with karma. We cannot take away one iota, 
one least ounce of the force which we have already sent 
forth; but we can always endeavor to improve matters by 
setting in motion a new force of opposite character. If 
you have sent forth an angry thought, it is true that you 
cannot recall that, but you may swiftly send after it an- 
other which will to a large extent neutralize its effect 
upon the person towards whom it was directed — a 
thought of affection and brotherliness, a strong, loving 
wish for his good and his progress. 

It is important not to forget that the law is acting upon 
all planes simultaneously, upon the astral and mental as 
well as upon the physical. It is only in this way that 
perfect justice is assured. For example, it is only when 
we remember this that we can at all understand how a 
man's intentions can be taken into account. A man may 
set out in some matter with the best of intentions, think- 
ing out his plan carefully, and putting a great deal of en- 
ergy and good-will into it, yet on the physical plane he 
may make some foolish mistake, or his plans may mis- 
carry, and he may do much harm instead of good. The 
world sees only the failure and laughs at him, and he 
feels himself unjustly treated. But the law meets him at 
all points and its adjustment is perfect. On the mental 



THE LAW OF CAUSE AND EFFECT. 253 

plane he has poured forth much energy for good, and 
upon that plane good flows back upon him in unstinted 
measure; upon the physical plane he has done harm, and 
consequently on that plane he receives the result of his 
mistaken action. But the action of force upon the men- 
tal plane is so much more rapid and far-reaching than on 
the physical that there is no comparison between the 
value of the results. So it is true that the intention is by 
far the most important thing, though absolute justice will 
be done on each plane. 

We may see that this is so in every-day life. Law on 
the physical plane takes no account of intention. If you 
seize a red-hot bar it will burn you, whether you seized it 
in order to kill somebody, or in order to save a child from 
injury. On the physical plane the result will be pre- 
cisely the same, but on the plane of intention it is very 
different. In the one case there could be nothing but 
shame and remorse, and the evil result of an outpouring of 
hatred and malice; in the other there would be the happy 
consciousness of a brave deed done, and the good which 
flows from a strong thought of heroic self-sacrifice. 

Let us then remember that just because of its inexora- 
bility we can use this Divine Law, and that with regard to 
it we must never permit ourselves to feel any sense of 
helplessness but only absolute serenity and perfect fear- 
lessness; for we know that the good must triumph, and 
that our individual future is entirely in our own hands. 



Life After Death-Purgatory. 

A Lecture Delivered Before a Chicago Audience by 

C. W. Leadbeater, the Great Psychic, 

of London, England. 



This subject of life after death is one of great interest to 
all of us, not only because we ourselves must certainly one 
day die, but far more because there can scarcely be any one 
among us, except perhaps the very young, who has not lost 
(as we call it) by death some one or more of those who are 
near and dear to us. So if there be any information avail- 
able with regard to the life after death, we are naturally 
very anxious to have it. 

But the first thought which arises in the mind of the man 
who hears of such a lecture as this is usually "Can anything 
be certainly known as to life after death?" We have all had 
various theories put before us on the subject by the various 
religious bodies, and yet even the most devoted followers of 
these sects seem hardly to believe their teachings about this 
matter, for they still speak of death as "the king of terrors," 
and seem to regard the whole question as surrounded by 
mystery and horror. They may use the term "falling asleep 
in Jesus," but they still employ the black dresses and plumes, 
the horrible crape and the odious black-edged note-paper, 
they still surround death with all the trappings of woe, and 
with everything calculated to make it seem darker and more 
terrible. We have an evil heredity behind us in this matter; 
we have inherited these funereal horrors from our fore- 
fathers, and so we are used to them, and do not see the ab- 
surdity and monstrosity of it all. The ancients were in this 
respect wiser than we, for they did not associate all these 
nightmares of gloom with the death of the body — partly 



LIFE AFTER DEATH— PURGATORY. 255 

perhaps because they had a so much more rational method of 
disposing of the body — a method which was not only infi- 
nitely better for the dead man and more healthy for the liv- 
ing, but was also free from the gruesome suggestions con- 
nected with slow decay. They knew much more about death 
in those days, and because they knew more they mourned 
less. 

The first thing that we must realize about death is that it 
is a perfectly natural incident in the course of our life. 
That ought to be obvious to us from the first, because if we 
believe at all in a God who is a loving Father we should 
know that a fate which, like death, comes to all alike cannot 
have in it aught of evil to any, and that whether we are in 
this world or the next we must be equally safe in his hands. 
This consideration alone should have shown us that death 
is not something to be dreaded, but simply a necessary step 
in our evolution. It ought not to be necessary for Theosophy 
to come among Christian nations and teach that death is a 
friend and not an enemy, and it would not be necessary if 
Christianity had not so largely forgotten its own best tradi- 
tions. It has come to regard the grave as "the bourne from 
which no traveler returns," and the passage into it as a leap 
in the dark, into some awful unknown void. On this point, 
as on many others, Theosophy has a gospel for the western 
world; it has to announce that there is no gloomy impene- 
trable abyss beyond the grave, but instead a world of light 
and life, which may be known to us as clearly and fully and 
accurately as the streets of our own city. We have created 
the gloom and the horror for ourselves, like children who 
frighten themselves with ghastly stories, and we have only 
to study the facts of the case, and all these artificial clouds 
will roll away at once. Death is no darksome king of ter- 
rors, no skeleton with a scythe to cut short the thread of life, 
but rather an angel bearing a golden key, with which he un- 
locks for us the door into a fuller and higher life than this. 

But men will naturally say "This is very beautiful and 
poetical, but how can we certainly know that it is really so?" 
You may know it in many ways, as I have often said before. 
There is plenty of evidence ready to the hand of any onQ 
who will take the trouble to gather it together. Shakspeare's 
statement is really a remarkable one when we consider that 
ever since the dawn of history, ami in every country of which 
we know anything, travelers have always been returning 



256 LIFE AFTER DEATH— PURGATORY. 

from that bourne, and showing themselves to their fellow- 
men. There is any amount of evidence for such apparitions, 
as they have been called. At one time it was fashionable to 
ridicule all such stories; now it is no longer so, since scien« 
tific men like Sir William Crookes, the discoverer of the 
metal thallium and the inventor of Crookes' radiometer, and 
Sir Oliver Lodge, the great electrician, and eminent public 
men like Mr. Balfour, the present Premier of England, have 
joined and actively worked with a society instituted for the 
investigation of such phenomena. Read, if you will, the re* 
ports of the work of that Society for Psychical Research, and 
you will see something of the testimony which exists as to 
the return of the dead. Read books like Mr. Stead's "Real 
Ghost Stories," or Camille Flammarion's "L'Inconnu," and 
you will find there plenty of accounts of apparitions, showing 
themselves not centuries ago in some far-away land, but here 
and now among ourselves, to persons still living, who can be 
questioned and can testify to the reality of their experiences. 
Still, as Mr. Stead himself remarks very forcibly in his pref- 
ace: "Of all the vulgar superstitions of the half -educated, 
none dies harder than the absurd delusion that there are no 
such things as ghosts. All the experts, whether spiritual, 
poetical or scientific, and all the others, non-experts, who 
have bestowed any serious attention upon the subject, know 
that they do exist. There is endless variety of opinion as to 
what a ghost may be. But as to the fact of its existence, 
whatever it may be, there is no longer any serious dispute 
among honest investigators. If any one questions this, let 
him investigate for himself. In six months, possibly in six 
weeks, or even six days, he will find it impossible to deny the 
reality of the existence of the phenomena popularly entitled 
ghostly. He may have a hundred ingenious explanations of 
the origin and nature of the ghost, b t as to the existence of 
the entity itself there will no longer be any doubt." The ev- 
idence is there in abundance, and if you do not care to look 
for it that is your fault, and no one loses but yourself; only 
if you have not examined it, you have no right to ridicule it 
and deny its existence. 

Another line of testimony to the life after death is tne 
study of Modern Spiritualism. I know that many people 
think that there is nothing to be found along that line but 
fraud and deception; but I can myself bear personal witness 
that that is not so. Fraud and deception there may have 



LIFE AFTER DEATH— PURGATORY. 257 

been — nay, there has been — in certain cases; but neverthe- 
less I fearlessly assert that there are great truths behind, 
which may be discovered by any man who is willing to de. 
vote the necessary time and patience to their unfolding. 
Here again there is a vast literature to be studied, or the 
man who prefers it may make his investigations for himself 
at first-hand, as I did. Many men may not be willing to take 
that trouble or to devote so much time; very well, that is 
their affair, but unless they will examine, they have no right 
to scoff at those who have seen, and therefore know that 
these things are true. 

A third line of evidence, which is the one most commend- 
ing itself to Theosophical students, is that of direct investi- 
gation. Every man has within himself latent faculties, un- 
developed senses, by means of which the unseen world can 
be directly cognized, as I explained in the lecture on "Man 
and His Bodies," and to any one who will take the trouble to 
evolve these powers the whole world beyond the grave will 
lie open as the day. A good many Theosophical students 
have already unfolded these inner senses, and it is the evi- 
dence thus obtained that I wish to lay before you. I know 
very well that this is a considerable claim to make — a claim 
which would not be made by any minister of any church 
when he gave you his version of the states after death. He 
will say, "The church teaches this," or "The Bible tells us 
so," but he will never say, "I who speak to you, I myself 
have seen this, and know it to be true." But in Theosophy 
we are able to say to you quite definitely that many of us 
know personally that of which we speak, for we are dealing 
with a definite series of facts which we have investigated, 
and which you yourselves may investigate in turn. We 
offer you what we know, yet we say to you "Unless this com- 
mends itself to you as utterly reasonable, do not rest con- 
tented with our assertion; look into these things for your- 
selves as fully as you can, and then you will be in a position 
to speak to others as authoritatively as we do." But what 
are the facts which are disclosed to us by these investiga- 
tions ? 

The state of affairs found as actually existing is much 
more rational than most of the current theories. It is not 
found that any sudden change takes place in man at death, 
or that he is spirited away to some heaven boyond the stars. 
On the contrary man remains after death exactly what he 
was before it — the same in intellect, the same in his qualities 



258 LIFE AFTER DEATH— PURGATORY. 

and powers; and the conditions in which he finds himself 
are those which his own thoughts and desires have already 
created for him. As we said last week there is no reward or 
punishment from outside, but only the actual result of what 
the man himself has done and said and thought while here 
on earth. In fact, the man makes his bed during earth-life, 
and afterwards he has to lie on it. 

This is the first and most prominent fact — that we have not 
here a strange new life, but a continuation of the present one. 
We are not separated from the dead, for they are here about 
us all the time. The only separation is the limitation of our 
consciousness, so that we have lost, not our loved ones, but 
the power to see them. It is quite possible for us so to raise 
our consciousness that we can see them and talk with them 
as before, and all of us constantly do that, though we only 
rarely remember it fully. A man may learn to focus his 
consciousness in his astral body while his physical body is 
still awake, but that needs special development, and in the 
case of the average man would take much time. But during 
the sleep of his physical body every man uses his astral ve- 
hicle to a greater or less extent, and in that way we are daily 
with our departed friends. Sometimes we have a partial re- 
membrance of meeting them, and then we say we have 
dreamt of them; more frequently we have no recollection of 
such encounters and remain ignorant that they have taken 
place. Yet it is a definite fact that the ties of affection are 
still as strong as ever, and so the moment the man is freed 
from the chains of his physical encasement he naturally 
seeks the company of those whom he loves. So that in truth 
the only change is that he spends the night with them in« 
stead of the day, and he is conscious of them astrally instead 
of physically. 

The bringing through of the memory from the astral plane 
to the physical is another and quite separate consideration, 
which in no way affects our consciousness on that other 
plane, nor our ability to function upon it with perfect ease 
and freedom. Whether you recollect them or not, they are 
still living their life close to you, and the only difference is 
that they have taken off this robe of flesh which we call the 
body. That makes no change in them, any more than it 
makes a change in your personality when you remove your 
overcoat. You are somewhat freer, indeed, because you have 
less weight to carry, and precisely the same is the case with 
them. The man's passions, affections, emotions, and intel- 



LIFE AFTER DEATH— PURGATORY. 259 

lect are not in the least affected when he dies, for none of 
these belong to the physical body which he has laid aside. 
He has dropped this vesture and is living in another, but he 
is still able to think and to feel just as before. 

I know how difficult it is for the average mind to grasp 
the reality of that which we cannot see with our physical 
eyes. It is very hard for us to realize how very partial our 
sight is — to understand that we are living in a vast world 
of which we see only a tiny part. Yet science tells us with 
no uncertain voice that this is so, for it describes to us whole 
worlds of minute life of whose very existence we should be 
entirely ignorant as far as our senses are concerned. Nor 
are the creatures of those worlds unimportant because mi- 
nute, for upon a knowledge of the condition and habits of 
some of those microbes depends our ability to preserve 
health, and in many cases life itself. But our senses are 
limited in another direction. We cannot see the very air 
that surrounds us; our senses would give us no indication of 
its existence, except that when it is in motion we are aware 
of it by the sense of touch. Yet in it there is a force that 
can wreck our mightiest vessels and throw down our strong- 
est buildings. You see how all about us there are mighty 
forces which yet elude our poor and partial senses; so ob- 
viously we must beware of falling into the fatally common 
error of supposing that what we see is all there is to see. 

We are, as it were, shut up in a tower, and our senses are 
tiny windows opening out in certain directions. In many 
other directions we are entirely shut in, but clairvoyance or 
astral sight opens for us one or two additional windows, and 
so enlarges our prospect, and spreads before us a new and 
wider world, which is yet part of the old one, though before 
we did not know of it. 

Looking out into this new world, what should we first see? 
Supposing that one of us transferred his consciousness to 
the astral plane, what changes would be the first to strike 
him? To the first glance there would probably be very little 
difference, and he would suppose himself to be looking upon 
the same world as before. Let me explain to you why this 
is so — partially at least, for to explain fully would need a 
whole lecture upon astral physics. Just as we have different 
conditions ot* matter here, the solid, the liquid, the gaseous, 
so are there different conditions or degrees of density of 
astral matter, and each degree is attracted by and corre- 
sponds to that which is similar to it on the physical plane. 



260 LIFE AFTER DEATH— PURGATORY. 

So that your friend would still see the walls and the furni- 
ture to which he was accustomed, for though the physical 
matter of which they are composed would no longer be vis- 
ible to him, the densest type of astral matter would still out- 
line them for him as clearly as ever. True, if he examined 
the object closely he would perceive that all the particles 
were visibly in rapid motion, instead of only invisibly, as is 
the case on this plane; but very few men do observe closely, 
and so a man who dies often does not know at first that any 
change has come over him 

He looks about him, and sees the same rooms with which 
he is familiar, peopled still by those whom he has known 
and loved — for they also have astral bodies, which are 
within the range of his new vision. Only by degrees does he 
realize that in some ways there is a difference. For exam- 
ple, he soon finds that for him all pain and fatigue have 
passed away. If you can at all realize what that means, you 
will begin to have some idea of what the higher life truly is. 
Think of it, you who have scarcely ever a comfortable mo- 
ment, you who in the stress of your busy life can hardly re- 
member when you last felt free from fatigue; what would it 
be to you never again to know the meaning of the words 
weariness and pain? We have so mismanaged our teaching 
in these western countries on the subject of immortality that 
usually a dead man finds it difficult to believe that he is dead, 
simply because he still sees and hears, thinks and feels. "I 
am not dead," he will often say, "I am alive as much as ever, 
and better than I ever was before." Of course he is; but 
that is exactly what he ought to have expected, if he had 
been properly taught. 

Realization may perhaps come to him in this way. He 
sees his friends about him, but he soon discovers that he 
cannot always communicate with them. Sometimes he 
speaks to them, and they do not seem to hear; he tries to 
touch them, and finds that he can make no impression upon 
them. Even then, for some time he persuades himself that 
he is dreaming, and will presently awake, for at other times 
(when they are what we call asleep) his friends are perfectly 
conscious of him, and talk with him as of old. But gradually 
he discovers the fact that he is after all dead, and then he 
usually begins to become uneasy. Why? Again because of 
the defective teaching which he has received. He does not 
understand where he is, or what has happened, since his sit- 



LIFE AFTER DEATH— PURGATORY. 261 

uation is not what he expected from the orthodox standpoint. 
As an English general once said on this occasion, "But if I 
am dead, where am I? If this is heaven, I don't think much 
of it; and if it is hell, it is better than I expected!" 

A great deal of totally unnecessary uneasiness and even 
acute suffering has been caused in this way, and the fault is 
with those who still continue to teach the world silly fables 
about non-existent bugbears instead of using reason and 
common sense. The baseless and blasphemous hell-fire 
theory has done more harm than even its promoters know, 
for it has worked evil beyond the grave as well as on this 
side. But presently the man will meet with some other dead 
person who has been more sensibly instructed, and will 
learn from him that there is no cause for fear, and that 
there is a rational life to be lived in this new world, just as 
there was in the old one. 

He will find by degrees that there is very much that is 
new as well as much that is a counterpart of that which he 
already knows ; for in this astral world thoughts and desires 
express themselves in visible forms, though these are com- 
posed mostly of the finer matter of the plane. As his astral 
life proceeds, these become more and more prominent, for we 
must remember that he is all the while steadily withdrawing 
further and further into himself. The entire period of an in- 
carnation is in reality occupied by the ego in first putting 
himself forth into matter and then in drawing back again 
with the results of his effort. If the ordinary man were 
asked to draw a Mne symbolical of life, he would probably 
make it a straight one, beginning at birth and ending at 
death; but the Theosophical student should rather represent 
the life as a great ellipse, starting from the ego on the 
higher mental level and returning to him. The line would 
descend into the lower part of the mental plane, and then 
into the astral. A very small portion, comparatively, at the 
bottom of the ellipse would be upon the physical plane, and 
the line would very soon reascend into the astral and mental 
planes. The physical life would therefore be represented 
only by that small portion of the curve which lay below the 
line which indicated the boundary between the astral and 
physical planes, and birth and death would simply be the 
points at which the curve crossed that line — obviously by no 
means the most important points of the wholo. 

The real central point would clearly be that furthest re 



262 LIFE AFTER DEATH— PURGATORY. 

moved from the ego — the turning-point, as it were — what in 
astronomy we should call the aphelion. That is neither 
birth nor death, but should be a middle point in the physical 
life, when the force from the ego has expended its outward 
rush, and turns to begin the long process of withdrawal. 
Gradually his thoughts should turn upward, he cares less and 
less for merely physical matters, and presently he drops the 
dense body altogether. His life on the astral plane com- 
mences, but during the whole of it the process of withdrawal 
continues. The result of this is that as time passes he pays 
less and less attention to the lower matter, of which counter- 
parts of physical objects are composed, and is more and 
more occupied with that higher matter of which thought- 
forms are built — so far, that is, as thought-forms appear on 
the astral plane at all. So his life becomes more and more 
a life in a world of thought, and the counterpart of the 
world which he has left fades from his view — not that he has 
changed his location in space, but that his interest is shift- 
ing its center. His desires still persist, and the forms sur- 
rounding him will be very largely the expression of these de- 
sires, and whether his life is one of happiness or discomfort 
will depend chiefly upon the nature of these. 

A study of this astral life shows us very clearly the reason 
for many ethical precepts. Most men recognize that sins 
which injure others are definitely and obviously wrong; but 
they sometimes wonder why it should be said to be wrong 
for them to feel jealousy, or hatred or ambition, so long as 
they do not allow themselves to manifest these feelings out- 
wardly in deed or in speech. A glimpse at this after-world 
shows us exactly how such feelings injure the man who har- 
bors them, and how they would cause him suffering of the 
most acute character after his death. We shall understand 
this better if we examine a few typical cases of astral life, 
and see what their principal characteristics will be. 

Let us think first of the ordinary colorless man, who is 
neither specially good nor specially bad, nor indeed specially 
anything in particular. The man is in no way changed, so 
colorlessness will remain his principal characteristic (if we 
can call it one) after his death. He will have no special suf- 
fering and no special joy, and may very probably find astral 
life rather dull, because he has not during his time on earth 
developed any rational interests. If he has had no ideas be- 
yond gossip or what is called sport, or nothing beyond his 



LIFE AFTER DEATH— PURGATORY. 263 

business or his dress, he is likely to find time hang heavy on 
his hands when all such things are no longer possible. But 
the case of a man who has had strong desires of a low mate- 
rial type, such as could be satisfied only on the physical 
plane, is an even worse one. Think of the case of the drunk 
ard or the sensualist. He has been the slave of overmaster- 
ing craving during earth-life, and it still remains undimin- 
ished after death — rather, it is stronger than ever, since its 
vibrations have no longer the heavy physical particles to set 
in motion. But the possibility of gratifying this terrible 
thirst is forever removed, because the body, through which 
alone it could be satisfied, is gone. We see that the fires of 
purgatory are no inapt symbols for the vibrations of such 
a torturing desire as this. It may endure for quite a long 
time, since it passes only by gradually wearing itself out, 
and the man's fate is undoubtedly a terrible one. Yet there 
are two points that we should bear in mind in considering it. 
First, the man has made it absolutely for himself, and deter- 
mined the exact degree of its power and its duration. If he 
had controlled that desire during life, there would have been 
jusi so much the less of it to trouble him after death. Sec- 
ondly, it is the only way in which he can get rid of the vice. 
If he could pass from a life of sensuality or drunkenness di- 
rectly into his next incarnation, he would be born a slave to 
his vice, it would dominate him from the beginning, and 
there would be for him no possibility of escape. But now 
that the desire has worn itself out, he will begin his new ca- 
reer without that burden, and the soul, having had so severe 
a lesson, will make every possible effort to restrain its lower 
vehicles from repeating such a mistake. 

All this was known to the world even as lately as classical 
times. We see it clearly imaged for us in the myth of Tan- 
talus, who suffered always with raging thirst, yet was 
doomed forever to see the water recede just as it was about 
to touch his lips. Many another sin produces its result in a 
manner just as gruesome, though each is peculiar to itself. 
See how the miser will suffer when he can no longer hoard 
his gold, when he perhaps knows that it is being spent by 
alien hands. Think how the jealous man will continue to 
suffer from his jealousy, knowing that he has now no power 
to interfere upon the physical plane, yet feeling more 
strongly than ever. Remember the fate of Sisyphus in 
Greek myth — how be was condemned forever to roll a heavy 



264 LIFE AFTER DEATH— PURGATORY. 

rock up to the summit of a mountain, only to see it roll down 
again the moment that success seemed within his reach. 
See how exactly this typifies the after-life of the man of 
worldly ambition. He has all his life been in the habit of 
forming selfish plans, and therefore he continues to do so in 
the astral world; he carefully builds up his plot until it is 
perfect in his mind, and only then realizes that he has lost 
the physical body which is necessary for its achievement. 
Down fall his hopes; yet so ingrained is the habit that he 
continues again and again to roll this same stone up the 
same mountain of ambition, until the vice is worn out. 
Then at last he realizes that he need not roll his rock, and 
lets it rest in peace at the bottom of the hill. 

We have considered the case of the ordinary man, and of 
the man who differs from the ordinary because of his gross 
and selfish desires. Now let us examine the case of the man 
who differs from the ordinary on the other direction — who 
has some interest of a rational nature. In order to under- 
stand how the after-life appears to him, we must bear in 
mind that the majority of men spend the greater part of 
their waking life and most of their strength in work that 
they do not really like, that they would not do at all if it were 
not necessary in order to earn their living, or support those 
who are dependent upon them. Realize the condition of the 
man when all necessity for this grinding toil is over, when 
it is no longer needful to earn a living, since the astral body 
requires no food nor clothing nor lodging. Then for the 
first time since earliest childhood that man is free to do 
precisely what he likes, and can devote his whole time to 
whatever may be his chosen occupation — so long, that is, as 
it is of such a nature as to be capable of realization without 
physical matter. Suppose that a man's greatest delight is in 
music; upon the astral plane he has the opportunity of lis- 
tening to all the grandest music that earth can produce, and 
is even able under these new conditions to hear far more in 
it than before, since here other and fuller harmonies than 
our dull ears can grasp are now within his reach. The man 
whose delight is in art, who loves beauty in form and color, 
has all the loveliness of this higher world before him from 
which to choose. If his delight is in beauty in Nature, he 
has unequalled possibilities for indulging it; for he can 
readily and rapidly move from place to place, and enjoy in 
quick succession wonders of Nature which the physical man 



LIFE AFTER DEATH— PURGATORY. 265 

would need years to visit. If his fancy turns towards science 
or history, the libraries and the laboratories of the world 
are at his disposal, and his comprehension of processes in 
chemistry and biology would be far fuller than ever before, 
for now he could see the inner as well as the outer workings, 
and many of the causes as well as the effects. And in all 
these cases there is the wonderful additional delight that no 
fatigue is possible. Here we know how constantly, when we 
are making some progress in our studies or our experiments, 
we are unable to carry them on because our brain will not 
bear more than a certain amount of strain; outside of the 
physical no fatigue seems to exist, for it is in reality the 
brain and not the mind that tires. 

All this time I have been speaking of mere selfish gratifi* 
cation, even though it be of the rational and intellectual 
kind. But there are those among us who would not be sat- 
isfied without something higher than this — whose greatest 
joy in any life would consist in serving their fellow-men. 
What has the astral life in store for them? They will pur, 
sue their philanthropy more vigorously than ever, and under 
better conditions than on this lower plane. There are thou- 
sands whom they can help, and with far greater certainty of 
really being able to do good than we usually attain in this 
life. Some devote themselves thus to the general good; 
some are especially occupied with cases among their own 
family or friends, either living or dead. It is a strange in- 
version of the facts, this employment of those words living 
and dead; for surely we are the dead, we who are buried in 
these gross, cramping physical bodies, and they are truly 
the living, who are so much freer and more capable, because 
less hampered. Often the mother who has passed into that 
higher life will still watch over her child, and be to him a 
veritable guardian angel; often the "dead" husband still re- 
mains within reach and in touch for his sorrowing wife, 
thankful if even now and then he is able to make her feel 
that he lives in strength and love beside her as of yore. 

If all this be so, you may think, then surely the sooner we 
die the better; such knowledge seems almost to place a 
premium on suicide! If you are thinking solely of yourself 
and of your pleasure, then emphatically that would be so. 
But if you think of your duty towards the Logos and towards 
your fellows, then you will at once see that this considera- 
tion is negatived. You are here for a purpose — a purpose 



266 LIFE AFTER DEATH— PURGATORY. 

Which can only be attained upon this physical plane. The 
soul has to take much trouble, to go through much limitation, 
in order to gain this earthly incarnation, and therefore its 
efforts must not be thrown away unnecessarily. The in- 
stinct of self-preservation is divinely implanted in our 
breasts, and it is our duty to make the most of this earthly 
life which is ours, and to retain it as long as circumstances 
permit. There are lessons to be learnt on this plane which 
cannot be learnt anywhere else, and the sooner we learn 
them the sooner we shall be free forever from the need of 
return to this lower and more limited life. So none must 
dare to die until his time comes, though when it does come 
he may well rejoice, for indeed he is about to pass from 
labor to refreshment. Yet all this which I have told you now 
is insignificant beside the glory of the life which follows 
it — the life of the heaven-world. This is the purgatory — that 
is the endliss bliss of which monks have dreamed and poets 
sung — not a dream after all, but a living and glorious real- 
ity. The astral life is happy for some, unhappy for others, 
according to the preparation they have made for it; but what 
follows it is perfect happiness for all, and exactly suited to 
the needs of each. But this is our subject for next week. 

Before closing let us consider one or two questions which 
are perpetually recurring to the minds of those who seek 
information about the next life. Shall we be able to make 
progress there, some will ask? Undoubtedly, for progress 
is the rule of the Divine Scheme. It is possible to us just in 
proportion to our development. The man who is a slave ,to 
desire can only progress by wearing out his desire; still, that 
is the best that is possible at his stage. But the man who 
is kindly and helpful learns much in many ways through the 
work which he is able to do in that astral life ; he will return 
to earth with many additional powers and qualities be- 
cause of the practice he has had in unselfish effort. So we 
need have no fear as to this question of progress. 

Another point often raised is, shall we recognize our loved 
ones who have passed on before us? Assuredly we shall, 
for neither they nor we shall be changed ; why, then, should 
we not recognize them? The attraction is still there, and 
will act as a magnet to draw together those who feel it, 
more readily and more surely there than here. True, that if 
the loved one has left this earth very long ago, he may have 
already passed beyond the astral plane, and entered the 



LIFE AFTER DEATH— PURGATORY. 267 

heaven-life; in that case we must wait until we also reach 
that level before we can rejoin him, but when that is gained 
we shall possess our friend more perfectly than in this pris- 
on-house we can ever realize. But of this be sure, that those 
whom you have loved are not lost; if they have died recently, 
then you will find them on the astral plane; if they have 
died long ago, you will find them in the heaven-life, but in 
aDy case the reunion is sure where the affection exists. For 
love is one of the mightiest powers of the universe, whether 
it be in life or in death. 

There is an infinity of interesting information to be given 
about this higher life, far more than could possibly be in- 
cluded in an evening's lecture. You should read the litera- 
ture; read Mrs. Besant's "Death and After," and my own 
little book on "The Astral Plane." It is very well worth 
your while to study this subject, for the knowledge of the 
truth takes away all fear of death, and makes life easier to 
live, because we understand its object and its end. Death 
brings no suffering, but only joy, for those who live the true, 
the unselfish life. The old Latin saying is literally true — 
Mors janua vitae — death is the gate of life. That is exactly 
what it is — a gate into a fuller and higher life. On the other 
side of the grave, as well as on this, prevails that same great 
law of Divine Justice of which I spoke last week, and we can 
trust as implicitly there as here to the action of that law, 
with regard both to ourselves and to those we love. 



Life After Death-The Heaven-World 



A Lecture Delivered Before a Chicago Audience by 

C. W. Leadbeater, the Great Psychic, 

of London, England. 



All religions agree in declaring the existence of heaven, 
and in stating that the enjoyment of its bliss follows upon a 
well-spent earthly life. Christianity and Mohammedanism 
speak of it as a reward assigned by God to those who have 
pleased him, but most other faiths describe it rather as the 
necessary result of the good life, exactly as we should from 
the Theosophical point of view. Yet though all religions 
agree in painting this happy life in glowing terms, none of 
them have succeeded in producing an impression of reality 
in their descriptions. All that is written about heaven is so 
absolutely unlike anything that we have known, that many 
of the descriptions seem almost grotesque to us. We should 
hesitate to admit this with regard to the legends familiar to 
us from our infancy, but if the stories of one of the other 
great religions were read to us, we should see it readily 
enough. In Buddhist or Hindu books you will find magnilo- 
quent accounts of interminable gardens, in which the trees 
are all of gold and silver, and their fruits of various kinds of 
jewels, and you might be tempted to smile, unless the 
thought occurred to you that after all, to the Buddhist or 
Hindu our tale of streets of gold and gates of pearl might in 
truth seem quite as improbable. The fact is that the ridicu- 
lous element is imported into these accounts only when we 
take them literally, and fail to realize that each scribe is 
trying the same task from his point of view, and that all 
alike are failing because the great truth behind it all is ut- 
terly indescribable. The Hindu writer had no doubt seen 



LIFE AFTER DEATH— THE HEAVEN-WORLD. 269 

some of the gorgeous gardens of the Indian kings, where 
just such decorations as he describes are commonly em- 
ployed. The Jewish scribe had no familiarity with such 
things, but he dwelt in a great and magnificent city — prob- 
ably Alexandria; and so his concept of splendor was a city, 
but made unlike anything on earth by the costliness of its 
material and its decorations. So each is trying to paint a 
truth which is too grand for words by employing such sim- 
iles as are familiar to his mind. 

There have been those since that day who have seen the 
glory of heaven, and have tried in their feeble way to de- 
scribe it. Some of our own students have been among these, 
and in the Theosophical Manual No. 6 you may find an effort 
of my own in that direction. We do not speak now of gold 
and silver, of rubies and diamonds, when we wish to convey 
the idea of the greatest possible refinement and beauty of 
color and form; we draw our similes rather from the colors 
of the sunset, and from all the glories of sea and sky, be- 
cause to us these are the more heavenly. Yet those of us 
who have seen the truth know well that in all our attempts 
at description we have failed as utterly as the Oriental 
scribes to convey any idea of a reality which no words can 
ever picture, though every man one day shall see it and 
know it for himself. 

For this heaven is not a dream; it is a radiant reality; but 
to comprehend anything of it we must first change one of 
our initial ideas on the subject. Heaven is not a place, but 
a state of consciousness. If you ask me, "Where is heaven?" 
I must answer you that it is here — round you at this very mo- 
ment, near to you as the air you breathe. The light is all 
about you, as the Buddha said so long ago; you have only to 
cast the bandage from your eyes and look. But what is this 
casting away of a bandage? Of what is it symbolical? It is 
simply a question of raising the consciousness to a higher 
level, of learning to focus it in the vehicle of finer matter. I 
spoke last week of the possibility of doing this with regard 
to the astral body, and thereby seeing the astral world ; this 
needs simply a further stage of the same process, the raising 
of the consciousness to the mental plane, for man has a body 
for that level also, through which he may receive its vibra- 
tions, and so live in the glowing splendor of heaven while 
still possessing a physical body — though Indeed alter such 



270 LIFE AFTER DEATH— THE HEAVEN-WORLD. 

an experience lie will have little relish for the return to the 
latter. 

The ordinary man reaches this state of bliss only after 
death, and not immediately after it except in very rare cases. 
I explained last week how after death the Ego was steadily 
withdrawing into himself. The whole astral life is in fact a 
constant process of withdrawal, and when in course of time 
the soul reaches the limit of that plane, he dies to it in just 
the same way as he did to the physical plane. That is to 
say, he casts off the body of that plane, and leaves it behind 
him while he passes on to higher and still fuller life. No 
pain or suffering of any kind precedes this second death, but 
just as with the first, there is usually a period of uncon- 
sciousness, from which the man awakes gradually. Some 
years ago I wrote a book called "The Devachanic Plane," in 
which I endeavored to some extent to describe what he 
would see, and to tabulate as far as I could the various sub- 
divisions of this glorious Land of Light, giving instances 
which had been observed in the course of our investigations 
in connection with this heaven-life. To-night I shall try to 
put the matter before you from another point of view, and 
those who wish may supplement the information by reading 
the book as well. 

Perhaps the most comprehensive opening statement is 
that this is the plane of the Divine Mind, that here we are in 
the very realm of thought itself, and that everything that 
man possibly could think is here in vivid, living reality. We 
labor under a great disadvantage from our habit of regarding 
material things as real, and those which are not material as 
dream-like and therefore unreal; whereas the fact is that 
everything which is material is buried and hidden in its mat- 
ter, and so whatever of reality it may possess is far less ob- 
vious and recognizable than it would be when regarded from 
a higher standpoint. So that when we hear of a world of 
thought, we immediately think of an unreal world, built out 
of "such stuff as dreams are made of," as the poet says. 

Try to realize that when a man leaves his physical body 
and opens his consciousness to astral life, his first sensation 
is of the intense vividness and reality of that life, so that 
he thinks "Now for the first time I know what it is to live." 
But when in turn he leaves that life for the higher one, he 
exactly repeats the same experience, for this life is in turn 



LIFE AFTER DEATH— THE HEAVEN-WORLD. 271 

so much fuller and wider and more intense than the astral 
that once more no comparison is possible. And yet there is 
another life yet, beyond all this, unto which even this is but 
as moonlight unto sunlight; but it is useless at present to 
think of that. 

There may be many to whom it sounds absurd that a 
realm of thought should be more real than the physical 
world; well, it must remain so for them until they have 
some experience of a life higher than this, and then in one 
moment they will know far more than any words can ever 
tell them. 

On this plane, then, we find existing the infinite fullness 
of the Divine Mind, open in all its limitless affluence to every 
soul, just in proportion as that soul has qualified himself to 
receive. If man had already completed his destined evolu- 
tion, if he had fully realized and unfolded the divinity whose 
germ is within him, the whole of this glory would be within 
his reach; but since none of us has yet done that, since we 
are only gradually rising towards that splendid consumma- 
tion, it comes that none as yet can grasp that entirely, but 
each draws from it and cognizes only so much as he has by 
previous effort prepared himself to take. Different individ- 
uals bring very different capacities; as the Eastern simile 
has it, each man brings his own cup, and some of the cups 
are large and some are small, but, small or large, every cup 
is filled to its utmost capacity; the sea of bliss holds far 
more than enough for all. 

All religions have spoken of this bliss of heaven, yet few 
of them have put before us with sufficient clearness and pre- 
cision this leading idea which alone explains rationally how 
for all alike such bliss is possible — which is, indeed, the key- 
note of the conception — the fact that each man makes his 
own heaven by selection from the ineffable splendors of the 
Thought of God Himself. A man decides for himself both 
the length and character of his heaven-life by the causes 
which he himself generates during his earth-life; therefore 
he cannot but have exactly the amount which he has de- 
served, and exactly the quality of joy which is best suited to 
his idiosyncrasies, for this is a world in which every being 
must, from the very fact of his consciousness there, be en- 
joying the highest spiritual bliss of which he is capable — a 
world whose power of response to his aspirations is limited 
only by his capacity to aspire, 



272 LIFE AFTER DEATH— THE HEAVEN-WORLD. 

He had made himself an astral body by his desires and 
passions during earth-life, and, as I explained last week, he 
had to live in it during his astral existence, and that time 
was happy or miserable for him according to its character. 
Now this time of purgatory is over, for that lower part of his 
nature has burnt itself away; now there remain only the 
higher and more refined thoughts, the noble and unselfish 
aspirations that he poured out during earth-life. These 
cluster round him, and make a sort of shell about him, 
through the medium of which he is able to respond to cer- 
tain types of vibration in this refined matter. These 
thoughts which surround him are the powers by which he 
draws upon the wealth of the heaven-world, and he finds it 
to be a storehouse of infinite extent upon which he is able 
to draw just according to the power of those thoughts and 
aspirations which he generated in the physical and astral 
life. All the highest of his affection and his devotion is now 
producing its result, for there is nothing else left; all that 
was selfish or grasping has been left behind in the plane of 
desire. 

For there are two kinds of affection. There is one, hardly 
worthy of so sublime a name, which thinks always of how 
much love it is receiving in return for its investment of at- 
tachment, which is ever worrying as to the exact amount of 
affection which the other person is showing for it, and so is 
constantly entangled in the evil meshes of jealousy and sus- 
picion. Such feeling, grasping and full of greed, will work 
out its results of doubt and misery upon the plane of desire, 
to which it so clearly belongs. But there is another kind of 
love, which never stays to think how much it is loved, but 
has only the one object of pouring itself out unreservedly at 
the feet of the object of its affection, and considers only 
how best it can express in action the feeling which fills its 
heart so utterly. Here there is no limitation, because there 
is no grasping, no drawing towards the self, no thought of 
return, and just because of that, there is a tremendous out- 
pouring of force, which no astral matter could express, nor 
could the dimensions of the astral plane contain it. It needs 
the finer matter and the wider space of the higher level, and 
so the energy generated belongs to the mental world. Just 
so there is a religious devotion which thinks mainly of what 
it will get for its prayers, and lowers its worship into a spe- 
cies of bargaining; while there is also the genuine devotion, 



LIFE AFTER DEATH— THE HEAVEN-WORLD. 273 

which forgets itself absolutely in the contemplation of its 
deity. 

We all know well that in our highest devotion there is 
something which has never yet been satisfied, that our 
grandest aspirations have never yet been realized, that when 
we really love unselfishly, our feeling is far beyond all power 
of expression on this physical plane, that the profound emo- 
tion stirred within our hearts by the noblest music or the 
most perfect art reaches to heights and depths unknown to 
this dull earth. Yet all of this is a wondrous force of power 
beyond our calculation, and it must produce its result some- 
where, somehow,, for the law of the conservation of energy 
holds good upon the higher planes of thought and aspiration 
just as surely as in ordinary mechanics. But since it must 
react upon him who set it in motion, and yet it cannot work 
upon the physical plane because of its narrowness and com- 
parative grossness of matter, how and when can it produce 
its inevitable result? It simply waits for the man until he 
reaches its level; it remains as so much stored-up energy 
until its opportunity arrives. While his consciousness is fo- 
cused upon the physical and astral planes it cannot react 
upon him, but as soon as he transfers himself entirely to the 
mental it is ready for him, its flood-gates are opened, and its 
action commences. So perfect justice is done, and nothing 
is ever lost, even though to us in this lower world it seems to 
have missed its aim and come to nothing. Far more beauti* 
fully than I could ever put it, this has been expressed by the 
poet Browning, in Abt Vogler: 

There shall never be one lost good! what was shall live as 
before; 
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound; 
What was good shall be good, with, for evil, so much good 
more; 
On the earth the broken arcs; in the heaven a perfect 
round. 
All we have willed or hoped or dreamed of good shall exist; 
Not its semblance, but itself; no beauty, nor good, nor 
power 
Whose voice has gone forth, but each survives for the mel- 
odist 
When eternity affirms the conception of an hour. 
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard, 
The passion that P.eft the ground to lose itself in the sky, 



274 LIFE AFTER DEATH— THE HEAVEN-WORLD. 

Are music sent up to God by the lover and the bard ; 

Enough that He heard it once; we shall hear it by and by. 

That is precisely the Theosophical theory of the heaven- 
world, though it is written by one who is in no way con- 
nected with the society, and before the date of its foundation. 

The key-note of the conception is the comprehension of 
how man makes his own heaven. Here upon this plane of 
the Divine Mind exists, as we have said, all beauty and glory 
conceivable; but the man can look out upon it all only 
through the windows he himself has made. Every one of his 
thought-forms is such a window, through which response 
may come to him from the forces without. If he has chiefly 
regarded physical things during his earth-life, then he has 
made for himself but few windows through which this higher 
glory can shine in upon him. Yet every man will have had 
some touch of pure, unselfish feeling, even if it were but 
once in all his life, and that will be a window for him now. 
Every man, except the utter savage at a very early stage, 
will surely have something of this wondrous life of bliss. 
Instead of saying, as orthodoxy does, that some men will go 
to heaven^ and some to hell, it would be far more correct to 
say that all men will have their share of both states, (if we 
are to call even the lowest astral life by so horrible a name 
as hell), and it is only their relative proportions which differ. 

It must be borne in mind that the soul of the ordinary 
man is as yet but an early stage of his development. He 
has learnt to use his physical vehicle with comparative ease, 
and he can also function tolerably freely in his astral body, 
though he is rarely able to carry through the memory of its 
activities to his physical brain; but his mental body is not 
yet in any true sense a vehicle at all, since he cannot utilize 
it as he does those lower bodies, cannot travel about in it, 
nor employ its senses for the reception of information in the 
normal way. 

We must not think of him, therefore, as in a condition of 
any great activity, or as able to move about freely, as he did 
upon the astral levels. His condition here is chiefly re- 
ceptive, and his communication with the world outside him 
is only through his own windows, and therefore exceedingly 
limited. The man who can put forth full activity there is 
already almost more than man, for he must be a glorified 
spirit, a great and highly-evolved entity. He would have 
full consciousness there, and would use his mental vehicle as 



LIFE AFTER DEATH— THE HEAVEN-WORLD. 275 

freely as the ordinary man employs his physical body, and 
through it vast fields of higher knowledge would lie open to 
him. 

But we are thinking of one as yet less developed than this 
— one who has his windows, and sees only through them. In 
order to understand his heaven we must consider two 
points: His relation to the plane itself, and his relation to 
his friends. The question of his relation to his surroundings 
upon the plane divides itself into two parts, for we have to 
think first of the matter of the plane as molded by his 
thought, and secondly of the forces of the plane as evoked 
in answer to his aspirations. 

I mentioned last week how man surrounds himself with 
thought-forms; here on this plane we are in the very home 
of thought, so naturally those forms are all-important in 
connection with both these considerations. There are liv- 
ing forces about him here, mighty angelic inhabitants of the 
plane, and many of their orders are very sensitive to certain 
aspirations of man, and readily respond to them. But natu- 
rally both his thoughts and his aspirations are only along the 
lines which he has already prepared during earth-life. It 
might seem that when he was transferred to a plane of such 
transcendent force and vitality, he might well be stirred up 
to entirely new activities along hitherto unwonted lines ; but 
this is not possible. His mind-body is not yet in by any 
means the same order as his lower vehicles, and is by no 
means so fully under his control. All through a past of 
many lives, it has been accustomed to receive its impres- 
sions and incitements to action from below, through the 
lower vehicles, chiefly from the physical body, and some- 
times from the astral; it has done very little in the way of 
receiving direct mental vibrations at its own level, and it 
cannot suddenly begin to accept and respond to them. Prac- 
tically, then, the man does not initiate any new thoughts, 
but those which he has already form the windows through 
which he looks out on his new world. 

With regard to these windows there are two possibilities 
of variation — the direction in which they look, and the kind 
of glass of which they are composed. There are very many 
directions which the higher thought may take. Some of 
these, such as affection and devotion, are so generally of a 
personal character that it is perhaps better to consider 
them in connection with the man's relation to other people; 



276 LIFE AFTER DEATH— THE HEAVEN-WORLD. 

let us rather take first an example where that element does 
not come in — where we have to deal only with the influence 
of his surroundings. Suppose that one of his windows into 
heaven is that of music. Here we have a very mighty force; 
you know perhaps how wonderfully music can uplift a man, 
can make him for the time a new being in a new world ; if 
you have ever experienced its effect you will realize that 
here we are in the presence of a stupendous power. The 
man who has no music in his soul has no window open in 
that direction; but the man who has a musical window will 
receive through it three entirely distinct sets of impres- 
sions, all of which, however, will be modified by the kind of 
glass which he has in his window. It is obvious that his 
glass may be a great limitation to his view; it may be col- 
ored, and so admit only certain rays of light, or it may be of 
poor material, and so distort and darken all the rays as they 
enter. For example, our man may have been able while on 
earth to appreciate only one class of music, and so on. But 
suppose his musical window to be a good one, what will he 
receive through it? 

First, he will sense that music which is the expression of 
the ordered movement of the forces of the plane. There 
was a definite fact behind the poetic idea of the music of the 
spheres, for on these higher planes all movement and action 
of any kind produces glorious harmonies both of sound and 
color. All thought expresses itself in this way — his own as 
well as that of others — in a lovely yet indescribable series 
of everchanging chords, as of a thousand Aeolian harps. 
This musical manifestation of the vivid and glowing life of 
heaven would be for him a kind of ever-present and ever- 
delightful background to all his other experiences. 

Secondly, there is among the inhabitants of the plane one 
class of entities — one great order of angels, as our Christian 
friends would call them, who are specially devoted to music, 
and habitually express themselves by its means to a far 
fuller extent than the rest. They are spoken of in old Hindu 
books under the name of Gandharvas. The man whose soul 
is in tune with music will certainly attract their attention, 
and will draw himself into connection with some of them, 
and so will learn with ever-increasing enjoyment all the 
marvelous new combinations which they employ. Thirdly, 
he will be a keenly appreciative listener to the music made 
by his fellow men in the heaven world. Think how many 



LIFE AFTER DEATH— THE HEAVEN- WORLD. 277 

great composers have preceded him; Bach, Beethoven, Men- 
delssohn, Handel, Mozart, Rossini — all are there, not dead 
but full of vigorous life, and ever pouring forth far grander 
strains, far more glorious harmonies, than any which they 
knew on earth. Each of these is indeed a fountain of won- 
drous melody, and many an inspiration of our earthly musi- 
cians is in reality but a faint and far-off echo of the sweet- 
ness of their song. Very far more than we realize of the 
genius of this lower world is naught but a reflection of the 
untrammeled powers of those who have gone before us; 
oftener than we think the man who is receptive here can 
catch some thought from them, and reproduce it, so far as 
may be possible, in this lower sphere. Great masters of 
music have told us how they sometimes hear the whole of 
some grand oratorio, some stately march, some noble chorus 
in one resounding chord; how it is in this way that the in- 
spiration comes to them, though when they try to write it 
down in notes, many pages of music may be necessary to ex- 
press it. That exactly expresses the manner in which tho 
heavenly music differs from that which we know here; one 
mighty chord there will convey what here would take hours 
to render far less effectively. 

Very similar would be the experiences of the man whose 
window was art. He also would have the same three possi- 
bilities of delight, for the order of the plane expresses itself 
in color as well as in sound, and all Theosophical students 
are familiar with the fact that there is a color language of 
the Devas — an order of spirits whose very communication 
one with another is by flashings of splendid color. Again, 
all the great artists of medieval times are working still — not 
with brush and canvas, but with the far easier, yet infinitely 
more satisfactory molding of mental matter by the power of 
thought. Every artist knows how far below the conception 
in his mind is the most successful expression of it upon 
paper or canvas; but here to think is to realize, and disap- 
pointment is impossible. The same thing is true of all di- 
rections of thought, so that there is in truth an infinity to 
enjoy and to learn, far beyond all that our limited minds can 
grasp down here. 

But let us turn to the second part of our subject, the ques- 
tion of the man's relations with persons whom he loves, or 
with those for whom he feels devotion or adoration. Again 
and again people ask us whether they will meet and know 



278 LIFE AFTER DEATH— THE HEAVEN-WORLD. 

their loved ones in this grander life, whether amid all this 
unimaginable splendor they will look in vain for the familiar 
faces without which all would for them seem vanity. Hap- 
pily to this question the answer is clear and unqualified; 
the friends will be there without the least shadow of doubt, 
and far more fully, far more really, than ever they have been 
with us yet. 

Yet again, men often ask "what of our friends already in 
the enjoyment of the heaven-life; can they see us here be- 
low? Are they watching us and waiting for us?" Hardly; for 
there would be difficulties in the way of either of those the- 
ories. How could the dead be happy if he looked back and 
saw those whom he loved in sorrow or suffering, or, far 
worse still, in the commission of sin? And if we adopt the 
other alternative, that he does not see, but is waiting, the 
case is scarcely bettered. For then the man will have a 
long and wearisome period of waiting, a painful time of sus- 
pense, often extending over many years, while the friend 
would in many cases arrive so much changed as to be no 
longer sympathetic. On the system so wisely provided for 
us by nature all these difficulties are avoided; those whom 
the man loves most he has ever with him, and always at 
their noblest and best, while no shadow of discord or change 
can ever come between them, since he receives from them 
all the time exactly what he wishes. The arrangement is 
infinitely superior to anything which the imagination of man 
has been able to offer us in its place; as indeed we might 
have expected for all those speculations were man's idea of 
what is best, but the truth is God's idea. Let me try to ex- 
plain it. 

Whenever we love a person very deeply we form a strong 
mental image of him, and he is often present in our mind. 
Inevitably we take this mental image into the heaven-world 
with us, because it is to that level of matter that it naturally 
belongs. But the love which forms and retains such an im- 
age is a very powerful force — a force which is strong enough 
to reach and act upon the soul of that friend, the real man 
whom we love. That soul at once and eagerly responds, 
and pours himself into the thought-form which we have 
made for him, and in that way we find our friend truly pres- 
ent with us, more vividly than ever before. Remember, it 
is the soul we love, not the body; and it is the soul that we 
have with us here. It may be said, "Yes, that would be so 



LIFE AFTER DEATH— THE HEAVEN-WORLD. 270 

if the friend were also dead; but suppose he is still alive; he 
cannoi be in two places at once." The fact is that, as far 
as this is concerned, he can be in two places at once, and 
often many more than two; and whether he is what we com- 
monly call living, or what we commonly call dead, makes 
not the slightest difference. Let us try to understand what 
a soul really is, and we shall see better how this may be. 

The soul belongs to a higher plane, and is a much greater 
and grander thing than any manifestation of it can be. Its 
relation to its manifestations is that of one dimension to an- 
other — that of a line to a square, or a square to a cube. No 
number of squares could ever make a cube, because the 
square has only two dimensions, while the cube has three. 
So no number of expressions on any lower plane can ever 
exhaust the fullness of the soul, since he stands upon an 
altogether higher level. He puts down a small portion of 
himself into a physical body in order to acquire experience 
which can only be had on this plane; he can take only one 
such body at a time, for that is the law; but if he could take 
a thousand, they would not be sufficient to express what he 
really is. He may have only one physical body, but if he has 
evoked such love from a friend, that that friend has a strong 
mental image of him always present in his thought, then he 
is able to respond to that love by pouring into that thought- 
form his own life, and so vivifying it into a real expression 
of him on this level which is two whole planes higher than 
the physical, and therefore so much the better able to ex- 
press his qualities. 

If it still seems difficult to realize how his consciousness 
can be active in that manifestation as well as in this, com- 
pare with this an ordinary physical experience. Each of us, 
as he sits in his chair, is conscious at the same instant of 
several physical contacts. He touches the seat of the chair, 
his feet rest on the ground, his hands feel the arms of the 
chair, or perhaps hold a book; and yet his brain has no diffi- 
culty in realizing all these contacts at once; why, then, 
should it be harder for the soul, which is so much greater 
than the mere physical consciousness, to be conscious si- 
multaneously in more than one of these manifestations on 
planes so entirely below him? It is really the one man who 
feels all those different contacts; it is really the one man 
who fills all those different thought-images, and is real, liv- 
ing and loving in all of them. You have him there always at 



280 LIFE AFTER DEATH— THE HEAVEN-WORLD. 

his best, for this is a far fuller expression than the physical 
plane could ever give, even under the best of circumstances. 

Will this affect the evolution of the friend in any way, it 
may be asked? Certainly it will, for it allows him an addi- 
tional opportunity of manifestation. If he has a physical 
body he is already learning physical lessons through it, but 
this enables him at the very same time to develop the qual- 
ity of affection much more rapidly through the form on the 
mental plane which you have given him. So your love for 
him is doing great things for him. As we have said, the 
soul may manifest in many images, if he is fortunate enough 
to have them made for him. One who is much loved by 
many people may have part in many heavens simultaneously, 
and so may evolve with far greater rapidity; but this vast 
additional opportunity is the direct result and reward of 
those lovable qualities which drew towards him the affec- 
tionate regard of so many of his fellow-men. So not only 
does he receive love from all these, but through that him- 
self grows in love, whether these friends be living or dead. 

We should observe, however, that there are two possible 
limitations to the perfection of this intercourse. First, your 
image of your friend may be partial and imperfect, so that 
many of his higher qualities may not be represented, and 
may therefore be unable to show themselves forth through 
it. Then secondly, there may be some difficulty from your 
friend's side. You may have formed a conception somewhat 
inaccurately; if your friend be as yet not a highly evolved 
soul, it is possible that you may even have overrated him in 
some direction, and in that case there might be some aspect 
of your thought-image which he could not completely fill. 
This, however, is unlikely, and could only take place when a 
quite unworthy object had been unwisely idolized. Even 
then the man who made the image would not find any 
change or lack in his friend, for the latter is at least better 
able to fulfill his ideal than he has ever been during physical 
life. Being undeveloped, he may not be perfect, but at 
least he is better than ever before, so nothing is wanting to. 
the joy of the dweller in heaven. Your friend can fill hun- 
dreds of images with those qualities which he possesses, but 
when a quality is as yet undeveloped in him, he does nol 
suddenly evolve it because you have supposed him already tc 
have attained it. Here is the enormous advantage which 
those have who form images only of those who cannot dis 



LIFE AFTER DEATH— THE HEAVEN-WORLD. 282 

appoint them — or, since there could be no disappointment, 
we should rather say. of those capable of rising above even 
the highest conception that the lower mind can form of 
them. The Theosophist who forms in his mind the image of 
the Master knows that all the inadequacy will be on his own 
side, for he is drawing there upon a depth of love and power 
which his mental plummet can never sound. 

But, it may be asked, since the soul spends so large a pro- 
portion of his time in the enjoyment of the bliss of this 
heaven-world, what are his opportunities of development 
during his stay there? They may be divided into three 
classes, though of each there may be many varieties. First, 
through certain qualities in himself he has opened certain 
windows into this heaven world; by the continued exercise 
of those qualities through so long a time he will greatly 
strengthen them, and will return to earth for his next incar- 
nation very richly dowered in that respect. All thoughts 
are intensified by reiteration, and the man who spends a 
thousand years principally in pouring forth unselfish affec- 
tion will assuredly at the end of that period know how to 
love strongly and well. 

Secondly, if through his window he pours forth an aspira- 
tion which brings him into contact with one of the great or- 
ders of spirits, he will certainly acquire much from his inter- 
course with them. In music they will use all kinds of over- 
tones and variants which were previously unknown to him; 
in art they are familiar with a thousand types of which he 
has had no conception. But all of these will gradually im- 
press themselves upon him also, and in this way also he will 
come out of that glorious heaven-life richer far than he en- 
tered it. 

Thirdly, he will gain additional information through the 
mental images which he has made, if those people them- 
selves are sufficiently developed to be able to teach him. 
Once more, the Theosophist who has made the image of a 
Master will obtain very definite teaching and help through it 
and in a lesser degree this is possible with lesser people. 

Above and beyond all this comes the life of the soul or 
ego in his own causal body — the vehicle which he carries on 
with him from life to life, unchanging except for its gradual 
evolution. There comes an end even to that glorious heav- 
en-life, and then the mental body in its turn drops away as 
the others have done, and the life in the causal begins, 



282 LIFE AFTER DEATH— THE HEAVEN-WORLD. 

Here the soul needs no windows, for this is his true home, 
and here all his walls have fallen away. The majority of 
men have as yet but very little consciousness at such a 
height as this; they rest, dreamily unobservant and scarcely 
awake, but such vision as they have is true, however limited 
by their lack of development. Still, every time they return 
these limitations will be smaller, and they themselves will 
be greater, so that this truest life will be wider and fuller for 
them. As the improvement continues, this causal life grows 
longer and longer, assuming an ever larger proportion as 
compared to the existence at lower levels. And as he 
grows the man becomes capable not only of receiving, but 
of giving. Then, indeed, is his triumph approaching, for he 
is learning the lesson of the Christ, learning the crowning 
glory of sacrifice, the supreme delight of pouring out all his 
life for the helping of his fellow-men, the devotion of the 
self to the all, of celestial strength to human service, of all 
these splendid heavenly forces to the aid of struggling sons 
of earth. That is part of the life that lies before us; these 
are some of the steps which even we, who are as yet at the 
very bottom of the golden ladder, may see rising above us, 
so that we may report them to you who have not seen them 
yet, in order that you, too, may open your eyes to the unim- 
aginable splendor which surrounds you here and now in this 
dull daily life. This is part of the gospel which Theosophy 
brings to you — the certainty of this sublime future for all. 
It is certain because it is here already, because to inherit it 
we have only to fit ourselves for it. 



Whence Our Christmas? 



Lecture Delivered Before the Tacoma, Wash., Spirit- 
ualist Church, by Rev. Daniel W. Hull. 



Text: — "I am debtor, both the Greek and to the barba- 
rians, to the wise and to the unwise." — Rom. i: 14. 

The spirit of this text from Paul could scarcely be consid- 
ered even at this day very orthodox. Indeed very few ser- 
mons are likely to be founded on it. But Paul, though at 
times somewhat narrow, seems to be very broad in his relig- 
ious views. By the barbarians, he refers to those nations 
who wore full beards, and who were esteemed less polite 
than those who "marred the corners of their beards" with 
razors. He believed that certain peoples whose religions 
ethnically differed from the Pharisaic religion which he im- 
bibed with his early training might have their uses. Hence 
we hear him say, in the same chapter, that "God hath shewed 
it unto them." But he accuses them of being unfaithful to 
the revelations which have been made known to them. In 
Acts 17:23, he accepts the Athenian "unknown God" and 
their worship of him as orthodox in the genuine meaning of 
that word. It would be easy to show if it was relevant to 
this discussion, that Paul's departure from the customary re- 
ligious views of those of his day was his belief in Spiritual- 
ism or the apparition of Jesus after his death and in his 
ideas of a socialistic system of living. 

Max Muller said in his Science of Religion that he who 
knows one religion knows none. While this is true, it may 
also be said that its paradox is true: "He that knows one re- 
ligion in its entirety, knows all." But alas! how few of us 
know one religion. We assume to understand the Christian 
religion thoroughly, yet the thing we call Christian is very 
little like that which was handed out to the world by that 



284 WHENCE OUR CHRISTMAS? 

title in the time it was christened. It would be natural that 
Christianity should be in some respects similar to the other 
religions, because of the association of the early believers in 
the cult with the various religious peoples about them. We 
all know that we are each of us more or less hypnotized with 
the suggestions coming to us by the environments of our 
childhood. What was said and believed in our early lives 
comes to us as a part of ourselves, and none of us are so in- 
dependent as to be able to rise above the teachings of those 
early times. 

Next Wednesday night in the various churches of this city 
the little ones will be told that Christmas is the birthday of 
one Jesus, or Christ, as they will call him. Why they should 
do so in the absence of any testimony bearing in that direc- 
tion, is hard to explain. It is not true, and they ought to 
know it is not true. In every country in the world Christmas 
is celebrated on precisely the same day. And this has been 
done from time immemorial; and it is always celebrated as 
the birthday of some God. It is the birthday of Horus, Mith- 
ras, Hercules, Adonis or Bacchus, Apolon, Odin and several 
other gods or demigods of less notoriety, and these deities 
had been worshiped and the festival of their natal day ob- 
served, for they all had the same day, the 25th of December, 
long before the time of Jesus, but of this more later on. 

Only two of the gospels, Matthew and Luke, contain the 
accounts of the birth of Jesus, and neither of them can be 
relied upon as evidence. It will be noticed that in both Mat- 
thew and Luke there is a sudden break in the narrative and 
we read no more of Jesus till in one of them he was twelve 
years old, and then nothing after that again till he is thirty 
years old; in the other till he was thirty years old. This 
proves that these gospels had been edited by some one long 
after they had been written. The divinity of Jesus had not 
been thought of till some time after his death; and about 
three hundred years after his death a very bitter discussion 
arose on the subject which made it necessary that something 
should appear in his biographies to substantiate the dogma. 
Several other books had been written on his life, relating 
his immaculate conception, none of which got into the 
canon. Among these books, too absurd for human credulity, 
were the Gospel of the Infancy and the Protovangelon, and 
these contain the identical accounts we find in the begin- 
nings of Matthew and Luke. One of them has the Magi of 
Persia come at least nine hundred miles after the birth of 



WHENCE OUR CHRISTMAS? 285 

Jesus, following a star that went before them, and getting to 
his cradle before daylight, and the other has the native shep- 
herds following his star to his cradle. Then again Matthew 
has him get up and move into Egypt it would appear the 
same night, while Luke has him remain at least forty days. 
(Matt. 2:12, 13, and Luke 2: 21, 22.) It is very evident that 
these four chapters of Matthew and Luke were copied from 
the Gospel of the Infancy and the Protovangelon for the pur- 
pose of bolstering up the Trinity doctrine which was so 
stoutly denied by the Arians. 

Yet neither of these pseudo biographies give us any ac- 
count of the time that Jesus was born. It is not probable 
that the shepherds would be out of doors with their flocks at 
midwinter. Then why it is assumed that Christmas was the 
natal day of Christianity, and that by people who profess to 
be learned, is difficult to explain. 

There is one thing given in these accounts of Jesus' birth 
that may give us a little light upon the subject. That is that 
it was tax-paying time, whenever that may have been. I 
heard one lecturer say a few evenings ago, that that time 
was about the first of October, because that was the time the 
Jews squared all their accounts. It is very true the Jews 
settled their accounts on the day of atonement, or the tenth 
day of the seventh month, and as that occurred in the sign 
Libra it is quite probable that many other nations did the 
same. But the Jews did not have the assessment of the 
taxes. Palestine was under Roman rule at this time, and 
taxes would come due whenever the Emperor decreed. 
Luke 2:1 tells us that this decree "went out from Caesar 
Augustus." It may be that Caesar also took the sign of 
Libra for the squaring of accounts. This being the case, 
Jesus was born either the last of September or the first of 
October. 

Of co.urse it should be recognized that this account in Luke 
is unreliable, since the chapter we quote from with the pre- 
ceding chapter is an interpolation. But we have other evi- 
dence showing that he must have been born about that time. 
In Luke 3:23, we are told that Jesus at the time of John's 
preaching "began to be about thirty years old." Now it is 
agreed on all bands thai Jesus' ministry lasted tbree and a 
half years, and we know that be was crucified at the time of 
the Passover, whieh occurred OB tbe fourteenth day of the 
first month, or Immediately after the fulling of the first moon 
after the vernal equinox He would then bo thirty-three 



286 WHENCE OUR CHRISTMAS? 

and a half years old at the time of his death. Jesus was then 
baptized three and a half years before his death, which would 
make him thirty years old about the last of September or 
first of October. This thus fixes his birth at least three 
months before Christmas. 

How comes it, then, that we are celebrating Christmas as 
the birthday of Jesus? The answer is easy. All other na- 
tions were celebrating the birthdays of their gods upon that 
day, and this custom stole upon them possibly unobserved, 
but most probably was forced upon them by the wholesale 
conversion of the Roman government in the time of Constan- 
tine. We all know how natural it is for us to adhere to old 
forms even after we have learned better, and Christianity 
was environed from the time of its inception with adherents 
to the various pagan systems of religion. Abraham himself 
came out of Ur of the Chaldees, and we know that he made 
very little change from the religion of the Chaldees. He 
brought with him their Sabbath which was celebrated at 
each quarter of the moon; they had a festival every spring 
corresponding to the Chaldean festival; he circumcised his 
children, etc. 

W. St. Chad Boscowen in speaking of the religion of Baby- 
lonia, says: 

"The Babylonian festivals corresponded to the Hebrew fes- 
tivals almost day for day. In Nisan the fest of the spring or 
opening, which varied from the first to the eighth or fifteenth 
of Nisan, according to the period of the equinox, correspond- 
ed to the Passover. In Tisri there came the harvest feast, 
the feast of Tabernacles; while the strange festival of dark- 
ness and weeping on the fifteenth of Adar, which preceded 
"the great day when the destinies of all men were forecast," 
bears a strange resemblance to the Jewish feast of Purim. 
The temple of the Babylonians was essentially the same in 
name and construction as that of the Jews. The Hekal, the 
"holy place," literally the "palace," was separated as in the 
Jewish temple from the holy of holies by a veil. This latter 
was called by the name of parakku, the "shut-off portion," a 
word cognate with the Hebrew word paraketh, "the veil." 
Within it were the most precious records of the people or 
city, similar to the Jewish ark, placed in stone cists as in the 
temple at Ballawat and Sippara. Immediately above them 
was the throne of the god covered by a species of baldichino, 
corresponding to the mercy seat, and supported by cherubim 
or composite figures. Most of their institutions which dis- 



WHENCE OUR CHRISTMAS? 287 

tinguished them from the Gentile [goim] nations are to be 
found in Babylonia. The sabbath, called by the Babylonians 
the white day, or "the day of the rest of the heart," was kept 
on the seventh, the fourteenth, the twenty-first and twenty- 
eighth days with a strictness as great as that of the most 
Pharisaic Jews. No food was to be cooked, no fire to be lit, 
the clothes of the body might not be changed. It was even 
unlawful to wash. . . .In addition to this, even that distinctive 
ceremony which the Jews regarded as characteristic of their 
people, the rite of circumcision, we now know was a Chal- 
dean custom long before Abram left his Chaldean home." — 
Religious Systems of the World, p. 24. 

Although the decalogue forbids the making of any graven 
images, the cherubim was copied after the Babylonian god, 
being a bull with a man's face. Afterward the Jews were in 
captivity to the Babylonians, and no doubt they assimilated 
much of their theology, if there was anything they had the 
Jews had not received of them. Long before the appearance 
of Jesus, the land of Judea, and in fact all Asia and much of 
Europe, had been overspread with Buddhism, Mithraism, to 
say nothing of the various Greek and Roman cults which had 
been planted in the country by their captors, and all but the 
Buddhists celebrated Christmas as the natal day of one or 
more of their deities. Christianity absorbed then, not only 
their Christmas, but many of the other days sacred to their 
gods or demigods, with the gods themselves who became the 
saints in the Christian church. To illustrate, this is the 21st 
of September, the shortest day of the year, and is known in 
our calendar as St. Thomas' day. But St. Thomas is the 
Christian name given to Tamuz, who was Adonis in other 
days of the year. When the sun got down on this day to the 
lowest part of his journey, it seemed doubtful whether he 
should ever rise again. He was then in a hell, and unlike 
hell in this respect his fires were nearly extinct. 

This was called the death of Adonis, who had been slain by 
the wild boar of the woods who had inflicted five wounds 
corresponding to the five winter months. Because of this 
hopeless condition, Tamuz presided over that day. After 
the conversion of the Mithraists to Christianity, or more 
properly, alter the conversion of Christianity to Mithraism. 
this Phoenician deity was metamorphosed to St. Thomas, 
and the 21st of December was made his day, because he 
doubted whether his Lord would ever rise agaiu. So of the 
other days of the Saints calendar. 



283 WHENCE OUR CHRISTMAS? 

Take another illustration: Our Easter is no more a Chris- 
tian institution than is Christmas, or St. Thomas' day. It 
comes at about the same time of year that the Jews used to 
celebrate the Passover, and a transition was made from one 
to the other, because the nations and cults all about were 
celebrating that day as the resurrection day of the sun, it 
having risen above the equator before the commencement of 
the moon in which Easter was celebrated. The word Easter 
signifies rising, as the spirit rises from liquor or as yeast 
swells up. A discussion of this word would be very profit- 
able if it were in place here. The Germans called this 
Easter, Oster and it celebrated the rising of a god who had 
gone down into death at the winter solstice. 

Then there comes the "Christian Sabbath," another day 
derived from our pagan predecessors. There is not a scin- 
tilla of authority for the sanctity of this day. It was not 
even recognized by the early Christians when their pagan 
neighbors all about them were observing it. To illustrate, 
the Gentiles came to Paul and Barnabas after the Jews had 
gone out of the synagogue and desired them to preach to 
them the same words the next Sabbath. They should have 
said, "No, to-morrow is Lord's day, it is the day you respect 
and we have accepted that day as the Christian Sabbath, and 
we will preach to you to-morrow." No; this day did not 
come to be a Christian Sabbath until after Constantine's so- 
called conversion to Christianity. It was then enforced by 
a decree. When Constantine went over from Paganism to 
Christianity, he took with him nearly all the rites and cere- 
monies with the doctrines of the cult he had previously rev- 
erenced. 

In all mythology, a god is born on the 24th of December 
precisely at midnight, because at that time the sun has made 
progress sufficient toward the north, that assurance is given 
that he will not forever desert us. If you had put a stake 
in the ground to-day, it being the shortest day of the year, 
and marked the length of its shadow, and then on the 25th 
again measured its shadow, you would discover that the 
shadow had shortened a little, indicating that the sun had 
moved northward. The sun then became Horus in Egypt, 
because he had been a great and good king way back in very 
early times and had avenged his father Osiris' death, who 
had been slain by his brother Set, who afterward became 
our Satan, borrowed as you can see from the Egyptians. 



WHENCE OUR CHRISTMAS? 289 

All these kings went up in the sky where they had houses, 
and when the sun passed through their houses he took upon 
himself their name. Thus we have Horus born upon the 
24th of December, just as the constellation Virgo is rising, 
and the time of his birth is known by the appearance above 
the horizon of the star Vindimatrix which in these times was 
precisely at midnight. As she rises a little higher another 
star appears known as Spika Virginus. It is in the right 
hand of the virgin, and she is always represented as holding 
a spike of corn in it, a prophecy of the coming of another 
season's harvest. Now you will notice in those apocryphal 
chapters in Matthew and Luke that Jesus was born in Beth- 
lehem — that is, in the "House of Corn." You see those edit- 
ors of Matthew and Luke were quite anxious to make Jesus 
fit the birthplace of the Gods. But I was going to say that 
the kings and priests of early times became gods at their 
death and presided over the destinies of their nations as they 
had done in earth-life. You understand now how it was that 
Jehovah who elected himself god of Israel was jealous of the 
other gods and prohibited necromancy. 

The apocryphal accounts of Matthew and Luke have Jesus 
born in a stable. Mithra was born in a cave which was used 
as a stable, so that it was necessary that Jesus who was to 
supplant him should be born in a stable. Nearly all gods 
and demogods (take notice not demigods, but demogods, 
half man and half god) were born in stables or caves, or 
some lowly place. The sun is represented as entering Cap- 
ricornus the house of the goat on the 21st of December, hav- 
ing left the house of Sagittarius or the half horse, half man 
sign on the 21st of November. Now the houses of horses and 
cattle you all know are called stables, just such a place as it 
represented Jesus was born in. 

But right here, I want to put in a bit of explanation, and 
then you will understand how it comes that some of the ani- 
mals represented in the zodiac are considered sacred. In its 
apparent motion around the zodiac, the sun falls behind 
about 50 seconds. That is, a solar year is about 50 seconds 
longer than a siderial year. So you see that losing that 
much time each year after awhile would amount to several 
hours, and in a few hundred years it would be several 
months, and finally years. This is called the precession of 
the equinox. You can thus see that if the sun ontrred Cap- 
rfcornue at the birth of Jesus it would he 95,100 seconds later 
entering the same sign this y<ar Now pact sign has thirty 



290 WHENCE OUR CHRISTMAS? 

degrees and the sun in passing around the zodiac falls back 
a full degree in 71.8 years and would fall back entirely out 
of his sign in 2,154.66 years. The sun would thus pass en- 
tirely around the zodiac backward from the way he seems to 
travel in 25,856 years. The sun actually entered Sagittarius 
on the 21st of December, 388 B. C, and at the time that Jesus 
was born he entered that constellation five and a half days 
later, that is on the 26th of December, so that if Jesus had 
been born on the 24th of December, he was born on the cusp 
of Sagittarius. But then there is nothing wrong with that, 
as Sagittarius is half horse. He was born in a horse stable 
instead of a goat stable, that is all. But see where we are 
now. We are not only out of that constellation but also out 
of Sagittarius and almost two degrees in Scorpio. Your al- 
manacs are to the contrary, but these are facts, and alma- 
nac makers know it as well as I do. My planisphere also 
demonstrates it. 

Now a word with reference to astrology. Somehow these 
forecasts seem to come out just as astrologers figure them, 
but are the figures based on the zodiac? They claim they 
are, but I think not. To illustrate, I was born April 16, and 
had my horoscope cast about 25 years ago. It was based 
upon the hypothesis that I was born in Aries, but I was not. 
The sun instead of entering Aries March 21 that year, was 
already entering his second degree of Pisces. And yet I be- 
lieve in the truth of Astrology, if we once reduce it to a sci- 
ence. Why? Because I believe there is a sympathetic rela- 
tion of every part of the universe to every other part, and 
that these magnetic relations, if anything, are stronger than 
the magnetic relations between individuals on our planet. 
Some of those Suns are blue, others green and some bright 
red. Now suppose our sun was in conjunction with a red 
sun off somewhere in stellar space, would it not have some 
effect on the person born at that particular time ? It is natu- 
ral and scientific to expect something of the kind. But 
probably the greatest influence would be effected during the 
time of gestation and development of the foetus. That is the 
most receptive time and I am inclined to think that that has 
more to do with it than the particular constellation under 
which they happen to be born. During the period of gesta- 
tion the sun comes in conjunction with nine signs of the 
zodiac, and mingles his influence with each of them. All 



WHENCE OUR CHRISTMAS? 291 

these have their bearing in making the character of those 
who are being developed for an advent in this world. 

Possibly also the month in which one is born, instead of 
the sign, has something to do with their characters and des- 
tiny. Of course the influences may be modified or acceler- 
ated, also by the relations of the planets of our solar system 
to each other and the sun. I throw these thoughts in paren- 
thetically for the benefit of thinkers, that this question may 
be disentangled from its intricate anomalies. 

In Phoenicia Adonis was the presiding genius and he also 
was born at exactly the same hour minute and second. In 
later times the Hebrews became ashamed of their Jehovah 
and worshiped Adonis. The reason of this was probably be- 
cause the Phoenicians were in captivity with the Jews and 
they formed a sort of alliance as against Baal and other 
Babylonian gods. No doubt this was anticipated in Ps. 110:1, 
where we find David saying: "The Lord said unto my Lord 
[Jehovah said unto Adonai. — Septuagint] sit thou on my 
right hand until I make thy foes my footstool." The mean- 
ing of which is, "We two gods will align ourselves against 
the gods of our captors. At all events Adonis became the 
god of the Hebrews, and Jesus did not even recognize him 
when he was on earth, more than he did Jehovah. Adonis 
afterward became Bacchus, the god of wine. He was slain 
by the wild boar of the woods and died with five wounds, an- 
swering to the five wintry months. It will be remembered 
that Jesus died also with five wounds. The wild boar was 
killed in one of the twelve labors of Hercules. 

Apollo was born at precisely the same moment. He was 
called Apollo Soter r Apollo the Saviour], because he saved 
the world, that is he brought up the summer months whereby 
all flesh was saved. 

Mithras was also born at the same time and Christmas 
was celebrated in Persia, as we are celebrating it now, by 
rejoicings and gifts, except the gifts were made mostly to 
the poor and those who most needed them, instead of ex- 
changed as they now are. 

Mrs. Lydia Maria Child in her Progress of Religious Ideas, 
vol. I, p. 272, says: 

"Their most splendid ceremonials were in honor of Mith- 
ras, called the Mediator. They kept his birthday with many 
rejoicings on the 25th day of December, when the sun per- 
ceptibly begins to turn northward, after his long winter jour- 
ney." 



292 WHENCE OUR CHRISTMAS? 

John M. Robertson, in Religious Systems of the World, p. 
214, tells us : 

"The Mithraic Christians actually continued to celebrate 
Christmas day as the birthday of the sun despite the cen- 
sures of the Pope. When they listened to the Roman litany 
of the Holy name of Jesus, they knew they were listening to 
the very epithets of the sun-god — god of the skies, purity of 
eternal light, king of glory, sun of justice, strong god, father 
of the ages to come, angel of the great counsel. Their priests 
had been wont to say that "he of the cap" was "himself a 
great Christian." They knew that the "Good Shepherd" was 
a name of Apollo; that Mithra, like Hermes and Jesus, car- 
ried the lamb on his shoulders; that both were mediators; 
both creators, both judges of the dead; that the chief mys- 
teries of the two cults were the same." 

In this paragraph we see at once the festival of Mithras 
and the way it came to be incorporated into our Christian 
system. No wonder Justin Martyr said, in his Dialogue with 
Trypho, "When I hear Trypho, that Perseus was begotten of 
a virgin, I understand that the deceiving serpent counter- 
feited all this;" which means that some one in heaven had 
been revealing secrets of state. 

Hercules was also born on the 25th of December at the 
same hour of the previous night. He arose from his cradle 
and slew the serpent sent by Juno to destroy him. That ser- 
pent was the remaining wintry months of the year. His 
twelve labors represent his journeyings through the twelve 
signs of the zodiac. 

Christmas was celebrated by the Scandinavians under the 
title of Yul, the time of the birth of Odin. Yul was so 
named from the color of the sun which was yellow, and in 
some of those northern countries he had nearly disappeared 
and like gold which represented him, when it flees from a 
country which relies upon it, his disappearance presaged dire 
calamity to the world. James Freeman Clarke, in "Ten 
Great Religions," V. I, p. 386, says: 

"There were three great festivals in the year. The first 
was at winter solstice, and on the longest night of the year, 
which was called the Mother Night, as that which produced 
rest. [More likely it was called the Mother Night, because 
it was on this night that Isis, the Egyptian mother of Horus, 
Ishtar, the Babylonian mother of Merodach, Maya, the 
mother of Chrishna, Moo, of the Central Americans, the 
mother of the kings j. This great feast, called Yul, whence 



WHENCE OUR CHRISTMAS? 293 

comes the English Yule, the old name for Christmas, which 
festival took its place when the Scandinavians became 
Christians. Their festival was in honor of the sun, and was 
held with sacrifices, and great feasting." 

Our Yule-tide was copied from the Scandinavians. It was 
customary for lovers to plight their troth on this occasion, 
which was usually done under the mistletoe, an emblem of 
fecundity. This was equivalent to plighting themselves to 
become the mutual parents of the same children. 

Thus we learn that Christmas is not a Christian institu- 
tion^ Like most of its doctrines it was adopted from prior 
religions. As said awhile ago, Abram came out of Ur of the 
Chaldees, and undoubtedly he brought with him some of the 
Chaldee religious tenets. For four hundred years his poster- 
ity associated with the Egyptians, and it is no marvel that 
their sacrifices and their ritual was an exact copy of the 
Egyptian sacrifices and ritual. In "Ten Great Religions," 
Vol. I, p. 253 James Freeman Clarke says: 

"Christianity conquered Egypt, but was itself deeply 
tinged with the faith of the conquered. Many customs 
founded in Christendom may be traced back to Egypt. The 
Egyptian at his marriage put a gold ring on his wife's finger, 
as a token that he entrusted her with all his property, just 
as in the Church of England service the bridegroom does the 
same, saying, 'With all my worldly goods I thee endow.' 
Clemens tells us that this custom was derived from the 
Egyptians." 

And a little farther along on the same page, he says: 

"The feast of candles at Sais is still marked in the Chris- 
tian calendar as Candlemas Day. The Catholic priest shaves 
his head as the Egyptian priest did before him. The Epis- 
copal minister's linen surplice for reading the Liturgy is 
taken from the dress of obligation, made of linen, worn by 
the priest in Egypt. Two thousand years before the Pope 
assumed to hold the keys, there was an Egyptian priest at 
Thebes, with the title of 'Keeper of the two doors of 
heaven.' " 

Again on the next page he says: 

"It is curious that Isis, the mother, with Horus, the child, 
in her arms, as the merciful gods who would save their wor- 
shipers from the vengeance of Osiris, the storn Judge, be- 
came as popular a worship in Egypt, in the time of Augustus, 
as that of the Virgin and child is in Italy to-day. Juvenal 



294 WHENCE OUR CHRISTMAS? 

says that the painters of Roine almost lived by painting the 
goddess Isis, the Madonna of Egypt, which had been import- 
ed into Italy, and which was very popular there." 

But I might go on multiplying evidences that what we call 
Christianity is borrowed, as I have plenty more such evi- 
dence on hand. The truth is that all religions now known 
had a common origin. Opening Prescott's History of the 
Conquest of Peru, under the title of "Festivals," I find the 
following: 

"Each month had its appropriate festival, or festivals. 
Perhaps the most magnificent of all was the feast of Raymi 
[Christmas], held at the period of the summer (this was 
south of the equator) solstice, when the sun having touched 
the southern extremity of his course, retraced his path, as if 
to gladden the hearts of his chosen people by his presence. 
On this occasion the Indian nobles from the different quar- 
ters of the country thronged to the capital to take part in the 
great religious celebration. For three days previous there 
was a general fast, and no fire was allowed to be lighted in 
the dwellings. When the appointed day arrived, the Inca 
and his court, followed by the whole population of the city, 
assembled at early dawn in the great square to greet the 
rising sun." 

Thus we find this festival in every part of the world, long, 
too, before the Christian era. The evidence is just as abund- 
ant showing a similarity of all religions and Dr. La Plongeon 
in his excavations in Central America finds abundance of ev- 
idence that not only the various religions of the earth but 
also nearly all our customs were carried over there from 
that country after the destruction of the Atlantis. His phil- 
ological evidences abundantly demonstrate that the Central 
American religion was the older of the two. Not only that, 
but they had as correct ideas of the earth's magnitude and 
apparently of the science of astronomy as we have to-day. 
William Robertson in "An Historical Disquisition Concerning 
Ancient India," tells us that five thousand years ago, "is 
most accurate, and the nearer we come to our own times 
the more the conformity of its results with ours diminishes," 
and that the "superior perfection of the Indian tables be- 
comes always more conspicuous as we go farther back to an- 
tiquity." 



Telepathy and Mind Cure. 

A Lecture Delivered Before a Chicago Audience, by 

C. W. Leadbeater, the Great Psychic, 

of London, England. 



Let us commence by denning the meaning of our terms. 
The term telepathy is derived from two Greek words, and its 
literal meaning is "feeling at a distance," but it is now gen- 
erally used almost synonymously with thought-transference, 
and may be taken to cover any transfer of an image, a 
thought or a sensation from one person to another by non- 
physical means — means unknown to ordinary science. The 
word "mind-cure" bears its meaning on its face — unless in- 
deed one reverses the arrangement of the words; it does not 
mean a cure for a mind diseased, but the curing of physical 
ills by the use of the mind, or at least by distinctly non- 
physical means. So we see that both these subjects are 
very closely connected with the influence and power of 
thought, and a comprehension of them will therefore largely 
depend upon thoroughly understanding these latter ques- 
tions. First of all, then, let us spend a few minutes in con- 
sidering exactly how we think. 

To us thought seems an instantaneous process; we have 
a proverb "as quick as thought." Yet, rapid though it be, it 
is a more complicated process than we suppose. In that re- 
spect it resembles the process by which sensation reaches 
the brain from the different parts of the body. We com- 
monly think of that also as almost instantaneous, but sci- 
ence assures us that it is not so in reality. When, for ex- 
ample, we grasp something which is too hot, we very quickly 
drop it; yet in that moment of time two entirely distinct pro- 
cesses have taken place. The nerves of the hand have, as 
it were, telegraphed to the brain the message, "This object 



296 TELEPATHY AND MIND-CURE. 

is too hot," and the brain has sent back the answer, "Then 
drop it," and it is only in response to this order that the 
hand relaxes, and the object is released. The rate at which 
these messages travel has been measured by students of 
physics, so that the time occupied is appreciable by their in- 
struments, though to us it seems undistinguishable. 

A process exactly analogous takes place every time we 
think, though in this case it needs clairvoyant sight to watch 
what happens. To one who possesses the sight of the men- 
tal plane, thought is distinguishable in its formation as a vi- 
bration of the matter of the mental body of the thinker. 
Then it would be observable that by that vibration another 
was set up — a vibration an octave lower, as it were, in the 
grosser matter of the thinker's astral body, and from that in 
turn the etheric particles of the man's brain would be af- 
fected, and through them at last the denser grey matter 
would be brought into action. All these successive pro- 
cesses must take place before a thought can be translated 
into action on the physical plane; it may be said that the 
thought has to pass through two whole planes and part of 
another before it can come into effect down here. I must 
describe to you how this process appears from the clairvoy- 
ant point of view, so that you may have a clear mental im- 
age before you. 

Every cell in the physical brain — every particle of its mat- 
ter even — has its corresponding and interpenetrating astral 
matter, then behind or rather within that, it has also the 
still finer mental matter. The brain, as you are aware, is a 
cubical mass, but for the purposes of our examination let us 
suppose that it could be spread out upon a surface so that it 
was only one particle thick. Let us further suppose that the 
astral and mental matter corresponding to it could also be 
laid out in layers in a similar manner, the astral layer a lit- 
tle above the physical, and the mental a little above the 
astral in turn. Then we should have three layers of matter 
of different degrees of density, all corresponding one to the 
other, but not joined together in any way, except that here 
and there wires of communication existed between the phys- 
ical and astral particles, and were continued up into the 
mental matter. That would fairly represent the condition 
of affairs existing in the brain of the average man. In the 
adept, the perfected man, exery particle would have its own 
wire, and the communication would be perfect in every part 
of the brain alike; but the ordinary man has at present only 



TELEPATHY AND MIND-CURE. 297 

very few of these channels of communication opened. Now 
we know that the brain is mapped out into certain areas, 
each corresponding to a certain set of qualities. In the per- 
fect man all these qualities would be fully developed, for the 
wires belonging to all of them would be active; but in the 
ordinary man the great majority of the wires are as yet in- 
active, or hardly formed at all, and so the qualities corre- 
sponding to them are dormant in his brain. 

You may image these wires as tubes, through which the 
true man within has to send down his thought to the physical 
plane. In the fully developed man, each thought would have 
its own channel appropriate to it, through which it could de- 
scend directly to the correspondingly appropriate matter in 
the physical brain; but in the average man many of those 
channels are not yet open, and so the thought which ought 
to flow through them must go a long way out of its way, as 
it were — must find its expression through other and inappro- 
priate channels, going laterally through the brain of mental 
matter until it can find a way down, passing eventually 
through a tube not at all suited to it, and then, when it does 
reach the physical level, having to move laterally again in 
the physical before it encounters the physical particles which 
are capable of expressing it. You will readily see how awk- 
ward and clumsy such a roundabout expression is likely to 
be, and you will understand why it is that some people have 
no comprehension of mathematics, or no taste for music or 
art, as the case may be. It is simply that in the part of the 
brain devoted to that particular quality the communications 
have not^yet been opened up, so that all thought connected 
with that subject has to go round through unsuitable chan- 
nels; the brain is not yet in full working order, and there- 
fore the thought cannot yet work freely in all directions. 
The physical brain is a solid mass, and the astral and men- 
tal brains interpenetrate it, so that the layers and tubes do 
not really exist; but nevertheless the symbol is an accurate 
one as describing the want of communication between the 
mental, astral and physical particles. 

Picture to yourself what happens when we interchange 
ideas down here upon the physical plane. I formulate a 
thought, but before it can reach you it must pass from my 
mind through the astral matter of my brain down to the 
physical, and be translated into speech or writing. Then it 
appeals to you either through the waves of air which strike 
upon the tympanum of your ear, or through the light re- 



298 TELEPATHY AND MIND-CURE. 

fleeted to your eyes from the printed page; the idea enters 
the physical brain, but even then it has to pass up through 
the astral to the mental before it reaches the true man with- 
in, thus reversing the process which took place in my brain 
when I sent out that thought. Once more you will see that 
this is a very laborious method — that the message has to go 
a very long way round; and it will inevitably occur to you to 
ask whether this circuitous route is really necessary — 
Whether it is not possible to take a short cut, to tap the tele- 
graph wire at some intermediate point. Since the starting- 
point and the terminus are alike on the mental plane, since 
both on the way up and on the way down the message must 
pass through the astral and the etheric levels, is there no 
communication possible at any of these points, without 
lengthening the process by descent to the physical? 

There is such a possibility; indeed, there are three such 
possibilities; and this is precisely what is meant by telep- 
athy. We may under favorable circumstances open up, a 
direct communication between two mental bodies, between 
two astral bodies, or between two etheric brains; and this 
gives us three varieties of telepathy. Let us begin with the 
lowest. 

If I think strongly of any simple concrete form in my phys- 
ical brain, I make that form in etheric matter, so that it can 
be seen by a clairvoyant; but in the effort of making that 
image I send out etheric waves all round me, like the waves 
which radiate from the spot where a stone falls into a pond. 
When these waves strike upon another etheric brain, they 
tend to reproduce in it the same image. It is not the image 
itself which is sent out, but a set of vibrations which will re- 
produce the image. It is not like a speaking-tube, through 
which the voice itself passes, and could be heard as a voice 
at any point of its journey. It rather resembles a tele- 
phone in which it is not the voice itself which is conveyed, 
but a number of electrical vibrations set up by the voice, 
which when they enter the receiver are transmuted into the 
sounds of that voice once more. If you cut the telephone 
wire and listened at the end of it without a receiver, you 
would hear nothing, for the vibrations are not the sound, but 
under proper conditions they will reproduce the sound. 

In exactly this way a simple form may readily be trans- 
ferred from one brain to another, It is an experiment that 
may easily be tried, if any two people are sufficiently inter- 
ested to take a little trouble with it. One would have to 



TELEPATHY AND MIND-CURE. 299 

think strongly of some quite simple geometrical form, such 
as a cross, for example, or a triangle, while the other would 
have to sit quietly, and note what ideas formed themselves 
in his mind. In quite a number of cases such an effort would 
be successful the second or third time it was tried, though of 
course some people are more sensitive than others, and some 
people can form clearer images than others. In this case 
we have come down to the etheric state of matter, so that 
we are only one remove from the ordinary method of speech 
or writing; in fact what we have done is very like Marconi's 
wireless telegraphy. Let us see whether the same thing can 
be effected a stage earlier, at the astral level. 

Not only can it be done, but it is constantly being done all 
round us, though we do not notice it. The astral body is the 
vehicle of emotion and passion, as we have seen in previous 
lectures, so that what is conveyed from one person to an- 
other at this level will be an impression of a passional or 
emotional nature. Notice it for yourselves in family life. 
When one person is in a condition of deep depression, it will 
be found that others round him are very liable to be affected 
in the same way. If one person is especially irritable, then 
it will soon be observed that others in turn become less se- 
rene and more readily affected than usual. This simply 
means that any person who gives way to a strong wave of 
feeling of any sort is radiating a certain rate of astral vibra- 
tions which tends to reproduce that state of feeling in others 
as it impinges upon their astral bodies.. The case in which 
above all others this is important is with regard to the dead, 
for they are living entirely in the astral vehicle, and so are 
more sensitive to these waves of emotion than the living, 
who are to some extent protected by the density and dull- 
ness of their physical bodies. So if a man selfishly gives 
way to uncontrolled grief for the dead, he often causes his 
departed friend the most acute and profound depression. On 
the other hand, if he thinks of his friend with love and an 
earnest desire for his progress, he may help very much in- 
stead of hindering, because these feelings also will repro- 
duce themselves with perfect fidelity in the astral body of 
the dead man. This is a case of real telepathy, or "feeling 
at a distance." 

Now let us advance one stage more, and see whether it is 
not possible that the thought may be communicated directly 
from mind to mind on its own level, without descending even 
so far as to the astral plane. This also can undoubtedly be 



300 TELEPATHY AND MIND-CURE. 

done, and often is done, but it is a means of converse for the 
more exalted souls only as a regular thing. One who is 
highly developed may thus flash his ideas through space 
with literally the speed of thought, but for ordinary men as 
yet such power is rare. Nevertheless, it sometimes exists 
where there is unusually perfect sympathy between two per- 
sons, and I feel sure that when mankind is further evolved 
this will be our common method of communication. It is al- 
ready employed by the great Masters of Wisdom in the in- 
struction of their pupils, and in this way they can convey the 
most complicated ideas with perfect ease. 

We have before us, then, these three kinds of telepathy, all 
of them consisting simply of the conveyance of vibrations at 
their respective levels — liable, perhaps, to be confused by the 
superficial observer, but very readily distinguishable by the 
trained clairvoyant. In a minor way we may find evidence 
of one or other of them almost daily, for we so often observe 
cases in which some friend is thinking simultaneously along 
the same lines as ourselves — thinking, it may be, about a 
subject which has not occurred to either of us for months 
previously. 

We shall at once see how closely associated is telepathy 
with mind-cure, which aims to transfer good, strong thoughts 
from the operator to the patient. We meet with various 
types of mind-cure, differing considerably in their teach- 
ings, and calling themselves Christian science, mental sci- 
ence, mind-healing, etc., but they all agree in endeavoring to 
produce physical cures by non-physical means. There seems 
to be a vague general opinion afloat that Theosophy is op- 
posed to these systems, but this is entirely inaccurate. 
Theosophy is opposed to no form of faith ; on the contrary, it 
points out whatever is good in each of them, emphasizes and 
explains it, and thus combines them all into one harmonious 
whole. It objects only to misunderstanding and misuse of 
dogma or practice; it seeks, not to attack these multitudi- 
nous religions, but to comprehend them intelligently and to 
select from them impartially whatsoever things in them are 
beautiful and true. Our strong belief is that it is a very 
serious mistake for religious people to quarrel over trifles as 
they do. On broad principles of right and wrong they are 
all at one; they all agree that man ought to leave tne lower 
and seek the higher; let them then band together to convert 
the rest of the world to that much of religious faith, and 
leave the discussion of unimportant details until that great 



TELEPATHY AND MIND-CURE. 301 

task is accomplished. That seems to us to be a suggestion 
of the merest common-sense; yet how few can be induced to 
listen to it for a moment! 

So we who study Theosophy are in no way opposed to 
mind-cure, though there are some things connected with it to 
which we should take exception. Its leading idea is a very 
grand one — that of the power of thought. It is in no way a 
new conception, for the old religions have always taught it; 
you will find it, for example, very clearly laid down in the 
very first chapter of the great Buddhist book, The Dhamma- 
pada. To claim for the mind-curists the credit of discover- 
ing the power of thought is a mistake, and shows a sad ig- 
norance of the teaching of the great Oriental faith; but it is 
quite true that they are making many people in this country 
see it now for the first time. For this, then, we owe thanks 
to them, that they are raising some people out of material- 
ism, and opening their eyes to something higher and more 
rational; and that is a great thing to do, for when it has 
once been done, further advance becomes possible. All 
honor to them for their share in this work of elevating the 
thought of the time; and though there are points in their 
schemes that we may criticise, let us never forget that they 
have this always to their credit. Let me briefly mention 
first certain dogmas of theirs with which I cannot agree, and 
get those out of our way, so that afterwards we may turn to 
the more congenial task of stating the ideas with which we 
find ourselves fully in sympathy. 

First of all, I have never been able to see why a medical 
process should be erected into a religion; one might as well 
make a religion of homeopathy or hydropathy. So to those 
who are working upon such an unsatisfactory mental basis, I 
would offer the magnificent system of philosophy which they 
will find in Theosophy — a scheme which will give them food 
for thought, and supply them with a rational theory of the 
universe. One of the principal schools of mind-cure denies 
altogether the existence of matter — one which calls itself 
Christian science, though it is difficult to see upon what 
grounds such a name was assumed, since to deny the exist- 
ence of matter is neither Christian nor scientific. Certainly 
it cannot be the latter, for it is matter only that science can 
cognize, and all its experiments are conducted by its means. 
And this doctrine of the non-existence of material things is 
emphatically not Christian, but pagan, for it is the teaching 
of one of the oldest Oriental systems. Of course there is a 



302 TELEPATHY AND MIND-CURE. 

truth behind it, if it is rightly understood. All manifesta- 
tion comes forth from the Absolute, and presumably all will 
one day return to Him. All manifestation, therefore, is im- 
permanent, and from the point of view of eternity may be 
regarded as fleeting and momentary and hardly worth taking 
into account at all. Still, to say that it does not exist seems 
to be misleading, since it is in truth just as much one of the 
manifestations of the Logos as is that spirit which is its 
other pole. The Lord Buddha has said that there are two 
things which are eternal, akasa and nirvana; and the con- 
text seems to show us that he means what we now call mat- 
ter and force. Herein modern science agrees with him; and 
it seems to me that it is both truer and safer to recognize 
that while manifestation exists each type of matter is real 
on its own plane. It is quite true that while we are on the 
physical plane only physical matter is real to us, and astral 
and mental matter remain invisible to the lower senses, 
while when we raise our consciousness to the higher planes 
this condition of things is reversed; but it is the focus of our 
consciousness that has changed, not the manifestation of 
the Logos. So while we most fully recognize that the unseen 
things are the more important, we yet prefer to regard mat- 
ter as real to us so long as we are upon its level. It scarcely 
seems sensible first to deny the existence of the body, and 
then to point to an improvement in its condition as the result 
of the denial of its existence; for how can one cure that 
which does not exist? 

I incline to believe that this denial of matter is probably 
in essence a reaction against the old and horrible theory of 
a personal devil. Our friends feel intuitively that the idea 
of evil imposed upon us from without is an absurdity, since 
every man makes his own good and evil destiny for himself; 
so they say there is in truth no evil but that which we make 
— all is subjective; and then, since they constantly find 
themselves struggling against matter and its qualities, they 
make the old mistake of identifying matter with evil, and so 
come to the conclusion that there is really no matter. It is 
strange thus to find Bishop Berkeley's theory reappearing 
amidst such different surroundings, and we find ourselves re- 
minded of Swift's remark about him, "If Berkeley says there 
is no matter, then surely it is no matter what he says!" 

But the point in all these theories to which I feel myself 
most bound to take exception is the idea of securing wealth 
by undue influence; with that I must most emphatically dis- 



TELEPATHY AND MIND-CURE. 303 

agree altogether. Even to ask money for the use of mental 
power in curing disease seems to me undesirable; to use 
mental power in order unlawfully to extract it from others is 
a degradation and prostitution of the higher knowledge which 
ought to be held sacred for unselfish work. He who would 
seek wealth through mental effort should do so through le- 
gitimate channels only, and his attempt should be rather to 
limit his desires than to increase his possessions, for that 
alone is the path of true wisdom. 

Yet again — I know the value of strong faith and affirma- 
tion as well as any man, yet truth would forbid that I should 
deny that a body can ever be in ill-health. The true man, 
the ego, the soul, is not ill, and if the denial is understood 
in that sense there can be no objection to it. But it is not 
usually understood in that sense; the statement is clearly 
made that the way to get rid of a headache is to assert "I 
have no headache;" an assertion which may presently be- 
come true, but is undoubtedly false when it is first made. I 
do not deny that by persistently making that false state- 
ment an effect may be produced; but it seems to me that the 
falsehood is a much more serious evil than the headache or 
the toothache which it eventually removes. Any man may 
lawfully say, "My head or my tooth shall not ache," and in 
thus setting his will persistently against the pain he may 
very probably drive it away. Such an effort of will is quite 
legitimate and even admirable; the concentration of thought 
which it implies is a splendid exercise for any man. In this 
way one may well think against any disease, and thus repel 
its attacks, avoiding it altogether if it has not yet effected a 
lodgment in the body, and very greatly enhancing the effect 
of remedial measures if it is already in possession. The 
power of thought is enormous, and can hardly be exagger- 
ated. 

This brings us to that part of the mental science teaching 
which we can unreservedly approve. When they exhort 
their clients to think always cheerful thoughts, to cast away 
from them fear and worry, to avoid sedulously that fault- 
finding which always intensifies the evil to which it draws 
attention — in all This, and much more that they say, we can 
have for them nothing but unstinted praise. In one of their 
books a few days ago I found this advice given to a man: "If 
you feel depression or sad thought coming over you. think of 
something to bo glad about, quick! You have; no time to 
waste over depression!!" And as to fear, again and again 



304 TELEPATHY AND MIND-CURE. 

they assure us that most things that are feared never come 
to pass, and that whether they do or not, we double our 
trouble if we suffer the pain of fearing it beforehand — all of 
which is utterly true and healthy doctrine. Sometimes even 
this runs somewhat into extremes. I have read the state- 
ment that if men had no fear of disease there would be no in- 
fection, which of course is not true, since men often catch 
disease when they do not know of its existence. But what is 
true is that the man who is absolutely fearless about a dis- 
ease is very much less likely to catch it; though even then 
it may happen to him, if he is overtired, if the forces of the 
body are not active enough to repel the infection. So that 
in that exaggerated form the remark is untrue, though it has 
a basis of truth. 

The realization of the effect of thought upon others, and 
therefore of our responsibility for our thoughts, is also most 
admirable. We find it constantly in the mental science lit- 
erature of the better class. For example, it is stated that 
"false conceptions of God, and especially belief in eternal 
vindictive punishment, make their unwholesome influence 
felt in every bodily tissue." A startling and yet obvious 
truth, which it would be well for many people who think 
themselves orthodox to take very seriously to heart. Again, 
I find them asking us how we can wonder that we have such 
an increase of all diseases among us, especially nervous dis- 
eases, when for many generations the whole atmosphere has 
been full of chronic, fearful, selfish thought about religious 
matters — loaded with the thought-forms of terror-stricken 
men about an angry God, a horned devil with a barbed tail, 
the flames of hell, and other abominable figments of the dis- 
eased ecclesiastical imagination — an idea with much truth in 
it, surely, as any Theosophist will readily realize. 

I heartily agree also with the dictum which I find our 
friends laying down, that if a man thinks himself a poor 
worm and a miserable sinner, full of natural depravity, that 
is exactly the way to make him really an unpleasant entity of 
that description! If he despises himself to begin with, he is 
likely to become despicable; if he respects himself he is 
likely to remain worthy of respect. If he realizes himself as 
a spark of the Divine Life, and so knows that he can do all 
things through the Christ within which strengtheneth him, 
he is far less likely to be swept away by the storm of pas- 
sion, far less likely to yield to the insistent temptation. It 
is very true that we all are sinners, but we surely need not 



TELEPATHY AND MIND-CURE. 305 

aggravate our offences by being miserable sinners; and as to 
worms, we have passed through the reptilian stage many 
aeons ago, and there is nothing to be gained by talking non- 
sense! We are far more likely to be encouraged to forsake 
sin and to rise to virtue if we comprehend our true place and 
dignity, than if we believe, or profess to believe, a degrading 
falsehood. The "miserable sinner" can excuse himself by 
taking refuge in platitudes about human frailty; the Divine 
spark knows that he himself is responsible for his own ac- 
tions and his own evolution, and that he has the power to 
make himself what he will. 

One passage which I met with in reading books on mental 
cure I should like to quote verbatim, for it is a most beautiful 
idea, and as entirely theosophical as though it had come 
straight from one of our own teachers. "Knead love into the 
bread you bake; wrap strength and courage in the parcel you 
tie for the woman with the weary face; hand trust and can- 
dor with the coin you pay to the man with the suspicious 
eyes." Quaint in expression, but lovely in its thought; truly 
the Theosophical concept that every connection is an oppor- 
tunity, and that every man whom we meet even casually is a 
person to be helped. Thus the student of the Good Law goes 
through life distributing blessings all about him, doing good 
unobtrusively everywhere, though often the recipients of the 
blessing and the help may have no idea whence it comes. In 
such benefaction every man can take his share, the poorest 
as well as the richest; all who can think can send out kindly, 
helpful thoughts, and no such thought has ever failed, or can 
ever fail while the laws of the universe hold. You may not 
see the result, but the result is there, and you know not what 
fruit may spring from that tiny seed which you sow in pass- 
ing along your path of peace and love. 

Turning from the general principles to the definite cures 
which are frequently effected, it remains for us to consider 
how they are produced. There are several methods, and I 
think we may divide them into four classes, though there is 
also a fifth to which I must refer — one quite apart from any 
ordinary cures such as we have to consider, but nevertheless 
necessary to make our list perfect. 

1. The first type is that which denies the existence of 
matter and of disease, and aims at curing the person simply 
by making him believe he is well. A considerable amount 
of hypnotic influence is frequently exercised in the course 
of such efforts, and the hope is that if the man really be- 



306 TELEPATHY AND MIND-CURE 

lieves himself well, the mind acting upon the body (which, 
however, does not exist) will force it into harmony with 
itself, and so produce a cure. They never can call it a cure, 
I notice, but always employ the scriptural word "healing," so 
as to throw a sort of religious glamour over the transaction, 
and suggest a comparison with the miracles described in the 
Bible. It seems to me better to divest the subject of all un- 
usual terms which tend to obscure the matter and throw a 
veil of sentiment over plain fact. We say that the ordinary 
doctor "cures" us by his skill; why then must we abandon 
the Latin word for the Saxon when we speak of the result of 
a mind-cure? 

2. The second class holds (truly enough) that all illness 
means inharmony of some sort in the system, and their ef- 
fort is simply to restore harmony, usually by the transfer of 
vibrations from themselves. That is to say, the operator en- 
deavors to bring himself into a condition of intense harmony 
and peace and devotion, and then to project this influence 
upon the patient, or to enfold him in it. The practitioner 
of either this type or the first does not care to know what is 
the matter with the patient; the nature of the disease is of 
no importance to him; in any. case it must be disharmony, 
and he can cure it by establishing harmony once more. 

3. The third class just pours vitality into the patient, 
again largely irrespective of the nature of the disease, 
though some practitioners of this method do make an at- 
tempt to direct their stream to the portion of the body which 
is affected. Many people who are themselves in strong 
health radiate a great deal of vitality quite unconsciously, 
and the sick or weak feel better and stronger from their very 
presence. 

4. Our fourth class adopts what we may call, by compar- 
ison with the others, a scientific method. They try to dis- 
cover exactly what is wrong, picture to themselves mentally 
the diseased organ, and then image it as it ought to be. The 
idea here is that the strong thought will mould etheric mat- 
ter into the desired form, and that will help nature to build 
up new tissues much more rapidly than would otherwise be 
possible. It is obvious that this plan demands a great deal 
more knowledge than the others ; to be successful along this 
line a person must have at least some acquaintance with 
anatomy and some idea of physiology. 

There is no doubt whatever that all these methods some- 
times succeed, and they would do so oftener and more fully 



TELEPATHY AND MIND-CURE. 307 

if they were employed more scientifically and with greater 
knowledge of the human body and its structure. Consider 
the various classes of diseases to which we are subject. 
The mind-curists are quite right in their contention that 
many of them proceed from want of harmony, and it is 
chiefly want of harmony between the etheric and the physi- 
cal particles in some part of the body — most often of all in 
the brain. We must remember that there is a very close 
connection between the mental body, the astral body and the 
etheric double in man, so that it is well within the bounds of 
possibility to influence one of them through the others. 
Now all nervous diseases imply a jangled, inharmonious con- 
dition of the etheric double; and that seems very often to be 
the cause of disease of the digestive organs, of headache and 
sleeplessness. In all such cases what is needed is first of all 
to quiet the hurried, irregular vibrations, and give Nature an 
opportunity to reassert herself. The strong, quiet, persist- 
ent thought of the operator would undoubtedly tend to pro- 
duce such an effect, and would leave the patient soothed and 
strengthened. The system of pouring in vitality would also 
be helpful, if it was not of a type that would aggravate the 
restless symptoms. In almost any kind of illness, to take 
the patient's mind off it, and calm and encourage him, is a 
long way towards a cure. Many a doctor of the older 
schools does far more good by the confidence he inspires 
than by his drugs. 

But there is a class of human ill where there is a definite 
lesion or wound. Could mind-cure do anything with them? 
The first and second kind would seem less effective here, 
though always to quiet and encourage the sufferer would in- 
crease his chance of recovery. The third plan would also as- 
sist Nature to recuperate; but such cases as these are cer- 
tainly best met by the fourth method, according to which an 
effort would be made to image the wounded part as it should 
be in health, and thus assist the building in of new tissue. 
This is of course merely an expedient to hasten the natural 
process of recovery. 

In another class of human disease we have the presence 
of some poison in the blood, and in yet another the illness is 
in reality the life-history of a microbe, as is the case prob- 
ably in infectious diseases. It would probably be difficult to 
deal directly with these by mental cure, but it certainly 
might assist greatly by giving the patient greater strength to 
enable the natural guardians of his body to drive out the for* 



308 TELEPATHY AND MIND-CURE. 

eign invader. I hear that the head of the least scientific of 
the schools of mind-cure has recently issued an order that 
infectious cases should not be treated by her followers. If 
people would only look at this matter scientifically and rea- 
sonably, and consider exactly what mental treatment can do, 
and what it cannot be expected to achieve, they would be 
saved much trouble and danger. If they could understand 
that in many cases it is a valuable auxiliary to the ordinary 
treatment, but is by no means competent to take its place, it 
might be much more successful than it is now. It is surely 
obvious that different diseases must be met by different 
methods, and that though there may perhaps be a universal 
cure for all physical ills, none of these plans which I have 
described contain it. The strong centre of quiet thought 
set up in the second of them cannot fail to do good to any 
man ; yet regarded as an effort to cure a wound, let us say, it 
would be a great waste of force; it would be like pouring a 
bucket of water over a man in order to wash his finger! And 
being, as far as the wound was concerned, a blind effort, it 
could never be so concentrated an effort as one made on the 
fourth plan, which would form a mould to assist Nature in re- 
pairing the damage. It is probable that a great Adept could 
so hasten the natural process as to cause an almost instan- 
taneous building into shape of the tissues which had been 
injured or destroyed; but the thought of an ordinary man 
would never be strong enough for that, and he could only 
hope to produce his result by continuous action. 

5. Nevertheless, there is another method of which we 
know very little, though unmistakable traces of it occasion- 
ally appear. No one who hears or reads of it need presump- 
tuously suppose that he or she possesses the power which it 
gives ; though unfortunately human self-conceit is so great 
that they are quite sure to do so instantly! We who have 
to lecture or to write know this only too well. If we, for the 
sake of our earnest students and as an encouragement for 
them, make an effort to describe the sight of the Buddhic 
plane, immediately somebody who has perhaps once had half 
a glimpse of something astral will come trotting up to say 
that their experiences on the Buddhic plane were far grander 
than those which the unfortunate lecturer or writer endeav- 
ored to describe! But in spite of this certainty that the in- 
formation will be misapplied, I must yet mention that there 
is another method connected with the great healing prin- 
ciple in Nature — with a mighty life-force from some far 



TELEPATHY AND MIND-CURE. 309 

higher level, which may under certain circumstances and 
for a limited time be poured out through a man without his 
detailed knowledge or volition. In that case his very touch 
will heal, and there seems to be no limit to the power em- 
ployed, and no disease that cannot be cured by it. We know 
little of it, I say, except that it is among the powers of one 
of the great orders of the devas, or angels, as our orthodox 
friends would call them. The power undoubtedly exists, 
but beyond that we can say very little. Our own president, 
Colonel Olcott, once possessed this marvelous power for a 
time, and effected some most extraordinary cures while it re- 
mained with him. 

Out of it all emerges this great fact, that through this idea 
of mind-cure many thousands have been induced to accept 
the reality of the power of thought, and to understand that 
there is something outside of this mere world of physical 
matter; and that at least is a very good thing, and an 
achievement upon which mind-cure may reasonably be con- 
gratulated. But it will be well for those who study it to 
learn that it should be used only for altruistic purposes, and 
to try to raise their thought to something higher than the 
mere curing of the physical body. For those who have no 
thought beyond that will presently find their occupation 
gone, since as the world evolves there will surely come a 
time when disease shall be no more, because man will at 
last have learnt to live reasonably, purely and healthily. 
But if they turn their knowledge to a higher use, and leave 
the physical for the mental, the curing of the body for the 
development of the soul, they may be a very mighty force 
for the evolution of the world. Let them think less of body, 
and more of life and soul; less of removing physical ailment, 
and more of removing ignorance and prejudice; less of 
bodily health and of personal gain, and more of love and com- 
passion and brotherhood; so shall their rapidly-spreading 
movement become a power for good which cannot readily be 
over-estimated, a world-wide blessing which shall endure and 
flourish through the ages which are yet to come. 



Moral Sense Colors. 



Relative to Their Influence Upon Human Conduct- 
Something for the Thoughtful to 
Think About. 



THE REMARKABLE RESULT OF RECENT EXPERI- 
MENTS IN COLOR PSYCHOLOGY, CONDUCTED BY 
PROF. ELMER GATES IN HIS LABORATORY IN WASH- 
INGTON, AS PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK WORLD. 



THE COLOR THEORY OF PROF. GATES. 

There are certain emotions which retard circulation, respi- 
ration, digestion, produce pallor, hasten fatigue, and other 
emotions which do just the reverse. Fear causes a cold per- 
spiration that differs chemically from that due to joyous 
labor. Anger fills the mouth with a bitter taste. By train- 
ing the good emotions life and health are promoted, while 
the bad emotions shorten life. 

Thus, even in its chemical nature, the universe is moral. 

Now, recently I have been able to prove that pleasing com- 
binations and contrast of color produce anabolism (or the 
life-producing force), and that discords of color and unpleas- 
ing combinations thereof augment katabolism (the life-de- 
stroying force). The conclusion is obvious that colors do 
this through aesthetic emotions, which, when pleasant, act 
as all other pleasant emotions, and when unpleasant do as 
other unpleasant emotions. I have shown that the fatigue 
point occurs less quickly under emotions due to pleasant 
colors and more quickly under emotions due to unaesthetic 
combinations. Thought has no such relations. Colors affect 
metabolism (the process of physical life) only through emo- 



MORAL SENSE COLORS. 311 

tion, and intellective states only in so far as they produce 
emotions. ELMER GATES, 

Professor of Psychology and Psychurgy. 
Washington, Jan. 22. 



A SCHEDULE OF THE MORAL EFFECT OF COLORS. 

Red Violent Passions,Rage and Love. 

Blue Sentimental Affections. 

White Peace, Quietness and Virtue. 

Purple Ambition and Lust of Power. 

Yellow Meanness, Craft and Cunning. 

Green Suspicion, Jealousy and Envy. 

Brown Honesty, Goodness, Equability. 

Gray Meekness and Demureness. 



Through recent remarkable experiments by Prof Elmer 
Gates, of the Laboratory of Psychology and Psychurgy at 
Washington, D. C, it has been discovered that colors have a 
distinct moral (or immoral) effect upon the human mind. 

It is a fair conclusion, from Prof. Gates' theory, which is 
based upon a series of wonderful demonstrations obtained 
by the use of scientific apparatus, that colors not only do pos- 
sess a distinct moral influence, but that this is the only di- 
rect effect which they do produce. In other words, their 
first appeal is to the emotions and "they effect the intellective 
states" (to use Prof. Gates' own words) "only in so far as 
they produce emotions." 

The meaning of this latest discovery in psychology is of a 
rather revolutionary character, if fully analyzed. 

It shows, for instance, that black, instead of being a sign 
of woe chosen at haphazard for that purpose, possesses in 
itself an inherent quality of sadness and was instinctively 
selected for mourning because of its possession of that qual- 
ity. It not only typifies sorrow — it creates it. 

White the Color of Morality. 

It shows that red is used to represent the more violent 
emotions of love and rage, because that color possesses the 
independent power of arousing those emotions, in some de- 
gree, in the human heart. 

It shows that white, with its negativeness, produces no 
violent effect upon the emotions and is therefore moral. 

It shows that purple— the Imperial purple which Rome haa 



312 MORAL SENSE COLORS. 

transmitted to succeeding generations — arouses in the hu- 
man heart ambition and the desire for power. 

Although Prof. Gates is the first scientist to announce a 
theory from which the moral influence of colors may be de- 
duced, there have been many instances of a tacit recognition 
of the fact by artists of the canvas and the stage. 

Mrs. Fiske, for example, in "Mary of Magdala," now run- 
ning at the Manhattan Theatre, dresses the part and the 
stage itself, during the scenes that deal more particularly 
with the life of the erring and sinful woman, in a deep and 
suggestive tone of red. When she was told by a writer for 
the Sunday World Magazine the other day of the theory re- 
garding the moral effect of colors, Mrs. Fiske did not seem 
surprised. 

"I always dress according to the emotions and character 
of the part I am to portray," she said, "and for this reason I 
have a red color scheme in 'Mary of Magdala.' Red is the 
character color of the woman." 

Indeed there is the highest warrant for the theory of the 
inherent immorality of red in the Scriptural reference to the 
sins that are "as scarlet," and history has furnished supple- 
mentary testimony in the "Scarlet Woman" and in the "Scar, 
let Letter," which Hawthorne used so picturesquely in one of 
his greatest romances. 

Mrs. Fiske, speaking further of the morals of colors, said: 

"My costumes in "Frou Frou" were studies of frivolity in 
shades of light blue and pink. In Tess I wore the white of 
my bridehood and the soiled pink of my London lodgings. 
Nothing could better portray Tess in colors." 

— The Testimony of Duse. 

Eleonora Duse was, perhaps, the first actress who ex- 
pressed the psychology of color. Her first season in New 
York was marked by a storm of comment and criticism on 
her peculiar gowns. The Italian artist did not deign to ex- 
plain, but when she returned to her native heath she laughed 
at the Americans who were unable to understand why she 
made her costumes in the "Wife of Caesar" a perfect holo- 
caust in color, so that she might express the innate deprav* 
ity of the woman she represented. 

Dr. William S. Wadsworth, Assistant Professor of Phys- 
iology in the University of Pennsylvania, has for years pur- 
sued the study of color effects upon the human mind, and 



MORAL SENSE COLORS. 313 

has performed experiments which indicate the moral effect 
of colors. 

Experiments of Dr. Wadsworth. 

To a visitor recently Dr. Wadsworth gave a little bottle of 
purple liquid, and asked him to hold it up to the light and 
look at it attentively. First it fascinated, then dazed the 
subject. At last it blazed before his eyes like a glittering 
phantasm, and he could stand it no longer. 

Dr. Wadsworth then selected a vial with a particular shade 
of green and handed it to the subject with the same instruc- 
tions. Scarcely had the visitor looked through it before he 
was seized with a nervous spasm. 

"Oh, it gives you the shakes, does it?" said Dr. Wads- 
worth; "well I have struck your keynote, that's all." 

Dr. Wadsworth has a new form of apparatus to test phys- 
ically and exactly the emotional effects of various colors. A 
man sits at a table and presses down a key topping a power- 
ful steel spring. He is told to keep it pressed down hard. 
So long as his attention is not diverted he does so, and a 
little wooden finger, connected with the key by wire and 
resting lightly on a revolving blackened cylinder, draws an 
almost straight line as this cylinder is revolved. 

But when a transmitted purple light floods through an ap- 
erture close to the man's face his attention is so much di- 
verted from the key that the little finger scratches a line of 
angry, toppling waves on the cylinder. Purple is turned off 
and scarlet is turned on. The waves are not so stormy, but 
still quite accentuated. Next comes yellow and so on. The 
height of the wave line on the cylinder designates equivalents 
of emotion. The higher the wave the greater the emotional 
effect of tne color. 

A Tablet of Fifty Colors. 

Dr. Wadsworth has a little tablet made up of fifty or sixty 
colors in sheets, one below the other, and when he flips these 
colors adroitly with finger and thumb your depreciation of 
their gamut is quite as ecstatic a sensation as when you keep 
on dipping your hands in boiling water. The sequence of 
colors stirs you profoundly, and if it is kept up for any length 
of time makes you exceedingly responsive from a standpoint 
of nerves. 

The worst form of torture which the "purple East" has 
ever devised has been that of color. The twelfth grade of 



314 MORAL SENSE COLORS. 

initiation into the Buddhist mysteries — the perfection of "as- 
tral" education, so graphically described by A. Conan Doyle 
in "The Mystery of Cloomber ' — is the so-called "color test." 
The neophytes are ushered into an extensive and lofty room, 
and at a given signal the whole surrounding space is flooded 
with an excruciating tint of purple light. It is reported by 
reliable witnesses that not more than three-quarters of those 
thus penned in are alive at the end of several hours, and that 
all the survivors are more or less frenzied. 

When one is thoroughly exhausted the eyes are invariably 
bloodshot. The readiest and quickest reliei for this physio- 
logical condition is to bathe the eyes with green. 

Whistler's Blue and Yellow. 

Whistler, the artist, created a sensation in London when 
he had a dining-room furnished in blue and yellow. He 
chose the antipodes of color — beauty and viciousness — not 
the bold color of passion that red expresses, but the low, 
sneaking badness of yellow. He found it a perfect balance. 
It has been copied the world over. 

And yet a short time ago Miss Alice Roosevelt instinctive- 
ly refused to sleep in her room in the White House because 
it had been decorated and furnished in these colors. 

"I love the blue," said Miss Roosevelt, "but the yellow is 
horrid. It is the association of truth and meanness." 

From time immemorial yellow has been associated with 
traits that are contemptible. 

A yellow dog has no friends in history. His color has 
made him a thing apart, while his mongrel brother whose 
color is black and tan is accepted and loved. 

Murderers have described the optical sensation of their 
rage as a sudden mist of swaying crimson, in which every 
instinct vanishes except that of killing. 

Satan is represented as red when he is not black. He has 
never been insulted so far as to be painted yellow, for, after 
all, he was once an angel. Mephistopheles is also red. 

Blue may be called the color of true love. The whole 
gamut of the emotion that keeps the world revolving on its 
axis may be expressed in its varying tints. 

Gray is the color of meekness. It is demure, quiet and 
calm. 

Brown is matter-of-fact, honest and good. 

Green is sad, suspicious and hopeless. It is not a bad 



MORAL SENSE COLORS. 315 

color, but it is a depressing one. Furnish your rooms in 
green and you will take an unpleasant view of life. 

The actinic waves produced by different colors have inev- 
itably the same effect upon the human mind. Upon each 
brain it is a question of balance and counter balance. The 
timid girl will atone for her timidity by having her room 
draped in vivid tints — the courage colors. 

Violet the Psychic Color. 

The hypersensitive creature will manage to surround her- 
self with hues of violet — the psychic color. 

The literary maid will tell you that she cannot write with 
proper enthusiasm without being surrounded by yellow. It 
is the color of schemes and plots. 

It is the belief of color faddists that you attract refined or 
vulgar associations by the chemical effects of the colors you 
wear. 

A Chopin nocturne may now be played in colors, or an aria 
drawn in outline by sensitized transmitters. Remington in 
England has invented the color organ and formulated a color 
scheme. 

Each note shifts the sand on a metal surface into strange 
geometrical figures, the repetition of the same note bringing 
always the same formation upon the metal. 



The Abysmal Monster. 

A Lecture Delivered by M. M. Mangasarian, in Chi- 
cago, Telling the Story of His Travels in Eu- 
rope and the Orient, His Observa- 
tions and Conclusions. 



WOULD BE FAIR WITH THE CATHOLIC CHURCH- 
TELLS STORY OF TRAVELS IN THE ORIENT, AND OF 
HUMAN IGNORANCE NOTICEABLE— THOUGHTS ON 
PRAYER, LIBERTY, CHURCHIANITY AND DEGENER* 
ATION. 



Let me tell you a simple story. I think it will be easier to 
convey an effective as well as a truthful picture of religious 
conditions in Europe by a few concrete illustrations than by 
an abstract or labored discussion. The subject is too large 
for one lecture. I shall therefore confine myself to the Cath- 
olic countries of Europe, with a few incidental remarks on 
the Moslem Orient. 

By way of preface let me say that I am more than anxious 
to be perfectly fair to the Catholic church. But truth first, 
and then the church, whether it be yours or mine. There are 
more than one reason why the Catholic church should com- 
mand our respect. She is the oldest religious institution in 
Europe; she is also the largest; she is the best equipped by 
organization and discipline to control and restrain the 
masses; she is perhaps the most masterful piece of human 
mechanism in the world which, with an occasional lubrica- 
tion, runs with the smoothness of a wound-up clock; she is 
also the great treasure-house of art and music. Neither 
would it require a stretch of generosity to credit her with 
having contributed considerably to the melioration of social 



THE ABYSMAL MONSTER. 317 

conditions, and fostered the struggling cause of democracy. 
There is scarcely an institution however worthy but it has 
done some evil, and hardly an institution however mischiev- 
ous but it has done some good; the real character of an insti« 
tution is determined by the "ensemble" of its influence. 

And now with my story. 

"The greatest thing in the world" which I encountered dur- 
ing my recent wanderings in Europe and the Orient — "the 
greatest," not for value, but for size and force, the most 
colossal, the most impenetrable, the most boundless and bot- 
tomless — was human ignorance. Knowledge is power, say 
we, but what about the power of ignorance! Was it not 
George Eliot who warned the sanguine reformers not to be 
too confident, in their hopeful ardor, of their ability to cope 
with this Abysmal Monster — Ignorance! 

It was particularly in Catholic Europe and in the Moslem 
Orient that I was brought into very close touch with this 
fearful foe to human progress. 

The conclusion was forcibly impressed upon me during 
my past summer in Europe and Asia that the countries 
which are the most religious, which have the greatest num- 
ber of churches or mosques, of priests and clergymen, of 
monks and monasteries, of nuns and convents, are also with- 
out a single exception the most poverty stricken and the 
most ignorant. 

Ignorance and poverty, like the "Siamese Twins," thrive 
most in the shadow of the Mohammedam Mosque and the 
Catholic church. 

Constantinople, for instance, is one of the most religious 
cities of the world; it was partly the scene of the conversion 
of the Roman Empire, the home of the earliest Christian em- 
peror, and the rendezvous of eccelsiastical councils and syn- 
ods. To-day it is as intensely Mohammedan as formerly it 
was Christian; but whether the one or the other, it has never 
ceased to be emphatically the most religious and the most 
wretched of the world's great cities. Churches and mosques 
are as thick as blackberries there, and what is more, these 
numerous houses of Moslem and Christian prayer are always 
open and bustling with worshipers. The Turks themselves, 
one would suppose, were never quite out of their mosques. 
Five times a day they must absent themselves from business 
to appear in the presence of their God to tell him there is 
only one God and He is it. This last time my windows in 
Constantinople looked directly into the inside of the mosque 



318 THE ABYSMAL MONSTER. 

across the street, which gave me an opportunity to witness 
the inveterate piety of the Turk. While the muezzin was 
crying from the top of the steeple or "minaret" that the hour 
for prayer had arrived — and it arrives, as I said, five times in 
twenty-four hours — the little mosque would be filling up with 
turbaned and sandaled Turks. The words "turbaned" and 
"sandaled" are apt to give you a picturesque idea of these 
worshipers, while in reality they are a most ordinary and un- 
washed crowd. But they are pious — I was convinced of that 
as I saw them performing their "namaz" with a seriousness 
and a scrupulosity difficult to duplicate. Talking with the 
American Ambassador in Constantinople about this religi- 
osity of the Turks, he told me that in his opinion the "na- 
maz" was the only physical exercise a Turk ever took. The 
Moslem sits in his shop cross-legged all day long except 
when he performs his genuflections in the mosque, which 
exercises his diaphragm and helps him digest his food. Of 
course the Turk would consider such an explanation as a 
profanity, for he believes that but for his prayers Allah 
would surely turn away his face from the land and give it 
over to destruction. Deluded creature! he is as miserable 
as he can be; his feet are shoeless, and his back is bare; he 
lives in a hovel; he has no liberties whatever, and his coun- 
try is morally and financially bankrupt, and goes zigzagging 
from one plague to another, from one famine to another — 
ever on the verge of some fresh evil; and yet the Moslem be- 
lieves that it is his genuflections which secure the smile of 
Allah, and that all he enjoys, which is pitiably little, is sent 
to him as a bachshish in answer to his frequent prayers. 

Five official prayers a day for so little! 

As I have considerable to say on the subject of Moslem 
and Christian prayer, let me preface my remarks on that 
subject by a passing reflection on the philosophy of prayer. 
As I saw men, women and children in Turkey, Greece and 
Italy incessantly muttering their prayers, crossing them- 
selves and falling on their knees with clasped hands and 
woful faces before some saint or madonna, I asked myself, 
Why do people pray? And I explained it in this way: People 
would never pray if they really believed the world was gov- 
erned by an infallibly intelligent being who would always do 
right, no matter what the provocations, and never wrong, no 
matter how great the inducements. But it is because people 
are not sure of this that they rush with their offerings, sacri- 
fices and sweet words of praise and prayer to prevent this 



THE ABYSMAL MONSTER. 319 

power from hurting them or to remind him not to forget to 
be good to them. Fearing, for instance, that it might rain 
too much or too little for their crops, or that the wind might 
blow from the east when it should blow from the south, they 
pray to God to tell him just how much rain they ought to 
have, and when and when the wind should blow. Not being 
sure that the government of nature is in rational hands, they 
hasten to offer suggestions and to present their petitions. 
If, for instance, a man were traveling with a companion in 
whose sanity and goodness he had perfect faith, he would 
not have to keep forever on the lookout lest his companion 
should hurt him or forget to be gentlemanly toward him. 
But if he were thrown in with a suspicious character, he 
would be compelled to humor him until he got out of his 
reach, for there is no telling what he might do. It is this 
element of uncertainty, this lack of confidence in the ration- 
ality of the universe — the suspicion that diviinity is an un- 
certain quaitity — that God behaves one way when He is of- 
fended and another when He is complimented, and that 
much of what He does is the result of how men humor or 
cross His will, and not because of the immutable laws of His 
own being, which explains the almost universal habit of 
prayer. 

When the news of the accident to President Roosevelt 
brought a message of sympathy from Emperor William, 
which was in good grace, but the Germon Emperor attributed 
President Roosevelt's escape to a "kind Providence." 
Providence, however, did not prevent one or two of the 
coaching party from being killed. But it is precisely because 
Providence has preferences that people think of thanking it. 
An impressionable deity alone can hear and answer wants. 

But does this religiosity, this constant praying and chant- 
ing, with the accompaniment of tapefihg candles, the curling 
fumes of incense, the chime of bells and the music of proces- 
sions, induce God to do more for a people than He otherwise 
would? Does He love the Moslems for their five prayers a 
day more than the Christians? Does He love them as much? 
Is He more prodigal with His blessings to the Italians and 
the Spaniards who go to mass every day than to the Ger- 
mans, the. English, the Americans who do not? Are the ma- 
terial and moral conditions of the people in Catholic coun- 
tries where the Holy Trinity, the Virgin Mary and the long 
list of saints are daily and loudly invoked, better, or even as 
good as those prevailing in heretical countries? In which 



320 THE ABYSMAL MONSTER. 

country of Europe is there more security of life, property and 
liberty, better sanitary conditions, wholesomer bread for 
the masses, less grinding misery or blighting ignorance? 
Certainly not in the most devoutly Catholic or Mohamme- 
dan lands. 

I was standing on a Sunday morning in June in St. Peter's 
Cathedral in Rome, where I saw troops of Italian pilgrim 
peasants, one after the other, walk up and kiss St. Peter's 
toe. "You have been kissing that bare, dead foot," said I, in 
my mind, "all your lives; and your fathers and mothers be- 
fore you; but what has it done for you or your country? 
You are wretched, poor and even filthy — I can see it; there 
is an unpleasant odor about your clothes ; you are uncombed 
and unwashed, and have had scarcely enough to eat; you 
look sleepy and stupid; the human element is scarcely dis- 
cernible in you! And is this all that St. Peter has done for 
you? Is it in the next world, then, that he is going to reward 
you for kissing his toe and paying his pence so regularly? 
But what prevents him from blessing you now and here, 
when your needs are so urgent, when your lot is so unspeak- 
ably miserable? Besides, if he insists on getting his pence 
now, why don't you insist on getting your reward now? Tell 
St. Peter that you will keep your savings until you go to the 
next world when you will place it all in a lump in his hands ; 
and he will shake his head, as much as to say, 'You can't fool 
me that way.' Why, then, do you allow him to fool you?" 

I stood before the statue of St. Peter a long time in sad 
meditations which really oppressed me — a black Peter in 
bronze, with a golden crown in the form of an aureola 
around his head under a canopy of blue and gold, and with 
two huge keys in one of his hands resting upon his breast — 
one supposed to be the key of heaven and the other of hell, 
the control of both being handed over to him, but I could not 
tell which was which — the keys looked exactly alike. In 
Florence, however, I saw a St. Peter who held in his hand a 
gold and a copper key, from which I inferred it is the cop- 
per key which opens heaven, and the gold key which fits the 
lock of hell. But this is only a conjecture. The Roman St. 
Peter holds out one foot, the toe of which is pretty well worn 
out, not from kissing, but from wiping it before kissing. Peo- 
ple are afraid they might contract some foul disease by kiss- 
ing the apostle's toe without first wiping it, which shows 
really what little faith, after all, people have in the power of 
their saint for present help. For, if a saint cannot save men 



THE ABYSMAL MONSTER. 321 

from catching a disease when they are kissing his blessed 
toe, when, then, can he? If people have to use their minds, 
and then their handkerchiefs before kissing his toe, why 
don't they extend that practice of self help and common 
sense to everything else in life? I saw some of these pious 
folk not only kiss the toe, but bow and shove their heads un- 
der it as a sign of absolute submission to the authority of St. 
Peter. Dear, dear! I wonder whose idea that was? 

It must be admitted that the piety of these people is not 
mere lip service, but genuine. As in Turkey, so in Italy, so 
in all Catholic Europe, there is no such thing as religious 
cant. Emerson used to say that only the English and the 
Americans are given to the odious practice of uttering hypo- 
critical phrases to God; he was right. Of course, the sin- 
cerity of the Moslems and the Catholics does not make their 
faith any the less, I am sorry to say, something of the nature 
of a malignant cancer which is eating away all their mate- 
rial resources as well as withering all their intellectual 
powers. 

It is pathetic to see how an Italian beggar, the moment a 
penny is slipped into her hands, runs away forthwith to de- 
posit it in the church box. The "chink, chink, chink" of the 
pennies falling into the church receptacles, everywhere vis- 
ible, is a deplorable yet a convincing evidence of the sincer* 
ity of these simple worshipers. Of course, the money is not 
given to the church in any disinterested spirit. On the con- 
trary, the people have an idea that dropping money into the 
church box which has been blessed by the Pope, and 
sprinkled with holy water is like depositing it in a savings 
bank — some day and somewhere they will get it all back 
again with compound interest. 

On our way to Pompeii we drove for hours through the 
city, which gave us a fine opportunity to see the homes of 
these pious people. Ah, what wretched poverty! These un- 
fortunate people are crowded into dark, dirty, barren quar- 
ters, not "flowing with milk and honey," as the promise runs, 
but steeped with shame and misery. No carpets, no chairs, 
no beds, no tables, but a few black, broken, cast-away and 
nameless articles in the way of household furniture. Yet in 
some of the meanest of these'habitations there could be seen 
on the walls an altar or a shrine of some virgin or saint, 
cased in glass, and an oil lamp burning before it day and 
night. The savings of the family go to give the saint a light, 
instead of the children bread or an education. There is a 



322 THE ABYSMAL MONSTER. 

firm in France which alone turns out about fifty thousand 
saints a year — I mean statues and images of saints, which 
are sold to these poor people. The head of this manufactur- 
ing plant, M. Raflii, recently said that his house had more 
orders for saints than it could fill. He also said that some- 
times they received orders to "turn out a saint" they had 
themselves never heard of and were compelled to consult the 
authorities. At the risk of being repetitious, let me say that 
the poor Italians who buy and support these saints believe 
that without their presence in the house everything would 
go wrong with them — as if it were possible for them to sink 
into lower depths of want and ignorance. 

In many of the Catholic churches of Italy we were shown 
by the guides the crutches which the lame had left there, 
having recovered the use of their limbs through the inter- 
vention of the saints. The pictures of Madonnas were cov- 
ered with silver hands and gold hearts as tokens of how their 
prayers had been answered. In one of the Venetian 
churches on the Grand Canal we saw a wooden leg deposited 
on one of the altars as an advertisment of the power of the 
saint whose picture it bore to cure even the maimed. "Is it 
possible," I said in broken French, as I could not speak Ital- 
ian, to the guide furnished by the church, "that a man came 
here with that wooden contrivance and exchanged it for a 
flesh and bone leg?" But he paid no more attention to my 
question, which I believe was pertinent, than if I had not 
been in existence. Now think of an organization that will 
resort to such advertisements for purposes of revenue. It 
makes the heart bleed to think of the imposition on the poor, 
honest, though ignorant, people. Instead of the wooden leg 
on the altar, would it not have been more to the point to 
have posted the name and address and photograph of the 
party on whom the miracle had been performed, for verifica- 
tion? But I suspect that the authorities have no use for any« 
body who wants to verify anything. "Believe all or believe 
nothing" is the motto of the church. In this same church the 
religious guide led us into another room, where he showed 
us how the roof had fallen during a fire and partly ruined 
the mosaic floor and also crushed and broken many of the 
images of the saints. Poor saints! they saved others, but 
could not save themselves! 

In the church of St. Mark, in Venice, one of the richest in 
all Europe, we were shown the grave of St. Mark, the Apos- 
tle. How in all the world they found out who St. Mark was 



THE ABYSMAL MONSTER. 323 

and where he was buried, I cannot tell. But now how can 
the critics deny there ever was a St. Mark when the church 
as the custodian of his bones can silence the skeptics by 
opening his grave and showing his remains. It is suggested 
that an eastern anchorite living in the desert saw in a dream 
the Apostle Mark, who told him where he was buried and 
begged to be removed to Venice. We were also shown in 
this church the stone upon which St. John was beheaded, 
and were actually told that if we paid five francs apiece he 
would conduct us to the vaults in the basement, the keys of 
which he held in his hand, where we would see the blood "of 
our Lord," and a few of his bones. The Catholics hold on to 
"bones and blood" as their best answer to the doubter. To 
make sure the guide was in earnest, I asked him repeatedly 
if the church really was in possession of the blood and bones 
of "our Lord," but was convinced he was not jesting. No, I 
did not pay him his price nor did I try to beat him down, for 
I never went out of my way to see manufactured antiquities 
of any kind. 

While driving in Athens we saw the open mouth of a 
cave by the side of a hill in the distance. "That is the prison 
of Socrates," exclaimed my guide, pointing in the direction 
of the cave; "don't you want to drive there?" "No," I an- 
swered, "I am sure that is not the prison of Socrates." 

In Venice they urged me to go and see Desdamona's house, 
and Shylock's, too. I never went, because I felt sure the 
house Shylock or Desdamona lived in was the poet's mind. 
But I did go to see "my sweet Shakspeare's" birthplace in 
Stratford-on-Avon, and I confess I am sorry I did, and some 
day I will tell you all about it. 

Perhaps of all the sights the one which pained me most 
was what I saw in the Church of the Holy Stairs or Steps in 
Rome, near St. John the Lateran. In a circular posted in 
the vestibule of this little church I learned that it possessed 
one of the richest treasures of Christendom — the marble 
steps up which Jesus ascended when he was in the flesh and 
upon which fell drops of His blood. These steps, which are 
supposed to have been miraculously preserved for the 
church, have now a wooden covering to further preserve 
them from wearing out. But the blood spots are there under 
the wood though they are invisible except to the eye of 
faith. The circular in the vestibule, printed in Italian, Ger- 
man and French — but not in English — says further, that 
these steps were brought to Rome in the year 361 by Queen 



324 THE ABYSMAL MONSTER. 

Helen during the lifetime of Constantine, the first Christian 
Emperor, and that Pope Leo IV. in the year 850 offered nine 
years' indulgences to every one who climbed them on his 
knees while saying a prayer on each step. The circular 
stated further, in Italian, German and French, but not in 
English — for fear of blushing — that a Bull of Pope Pascal, 
A. D. 1100, confirmed this decree and Pope Pius VII. declared 
the climbing of these steps on one's knees good also for the 
souls in purgatory. 

I assure you I did not feel like laughing a bit — it was far 
from being amusing. There were old women here of "both 
sexes" going up these steps on their knees, some of them 
with arms outstretched, and muttering a prayer on each 
step until they reached the top — about forty-three steps in 
all. I am restraining myself from exclaiming, "Oh, the 
power of human ignorance!" for the simple story I am telling 
you needs no coaching to make it convey its lesson. I look 
upon the mosques in Constantinople, the cathedrals in 
Rome, the great army of sleek, well-fed monks, the colossal 
religious establishments with their enormous wealth, as the 
greatest and most enduring monument ever raised to the 
power of human ignorance! As I saw men and women dip- 
ping their fingers in holy water and then falling on their 
knees before a clumsily dressed, doll-like Madonna, done 
with rouge, ribbons and ruffles, calico skirts and sunbonnet, 
and calling it "the mother of God," I did not feel like exclaim- 
ing with Shakspeare's enthusiasm, ""What a piece of work is 
man!" but with Voltaire's sad indignation, "What an absurd 
animal is man! " The clock has struck twenty on the dial of 
time, and yet Ignorance, the Abysmal Monster, is still with 
us. O Church of Rome, thy power is great. I admit it — for 
I have seen it with my eyes. In America thou art not at all 
like what thou art in Europe. There thou art thyself, open, 
frank, natural; there thy sway is absolute, thy word is infal- 
lible, thy saints innumerable and thy wealth boundless. 
There thou hast an army of servants as obedient to thy will 
as the waves are to the wind or the grass to the storm. 
Thou rulest the masses as easily as though they were pot- 
ter's clay in thy hands. Thou hast taxed them to their last 
farthing, which they must pay not only during their mortal 
existence, but which they must go on paying even after they 
are dead. 

But in return for all this, O Church of Rome! what hast 
thou done for Italy, or Spain, or Portugal, or for any country 



THE ABYSMAL MONSTER. 325 

thou callest "faithful?" Hast thou taught them anything 
useful? Hast thou been to them the expression of human 
progress? On the contrary, see to what a vast cemetery 
thou hast converted that once glorious Italy! A cemetery 
where liberty sleeps slain, where thought and knowledge re- 
pose in shackles, where industry, commerce, trade, enter- 
prise toss helplessly in the dust! Is this Rome? I asked my- 
self — this great graveyard of buried glory and genius! 
What! would you show me the burial grounds outside of 
Rome, where the proud pagans sleep in peace? The burial 
ground is inside Rome, and you, my brothers, are the dead. 
Cicero, Seneca, Horace still live; flowers grow out of their 
remains; but you are slaves. The yoke of the popes pinches 
your necks and the very bread is snatched from your 
mouths. Do not read to me the epitaphs on the graves of 
the immortal Romans. Read the epitaphs the church has 
cut deep on the flesh of your hearts: "Here lies Liberty!" is 
engraved upon your minds. Let me bow my head, and wipe 
away a tear from my eyes, for this is the grave of one dear to 
me, one I worship — Liberty! 

What, then, I ask, has modern Rome, with all her religious 
paraphernalia, accomplished for the Catholic world? It has 
given to all her hopes, aspirations, energies and, above all, 
liberties, a pompous, solemn interment. Hear the bells that 
toll and sweep over the Catholic world! Even they have in 
them the sigh of a people who have lost that for which man 
would give the whole world "though it were one solid chrys- 
olite" — liberty! 

Walking down the street the other day, I saw an organ 
grinder with his wife and daughter to assist him, devouring 
the windows of the houses on both sides of the streets with 
his eyes and grinning and courtesying to the children for a 
penny. They were Italians. Did I -ask a moment ago what 
Rome has done for Italy? But, see, she has left the hand- 
organ to the people, once the proudest in the world, to beg 
with! 

It is proper to ask now to point out how religiosity such as 
it exists in Turkey or in Italy and Spain becomes the parent 
of two of the greatest calamities which have ever inflicted 
humanity — poverty and ignorance. But how explain the in- 
timate relationship between churchianity and degeneration? 

In Moslem and Catholic countries the clergy have suc- 
ceeded in shifting the center of interest from the present to 
the future. The insistence upon the authority of the Book 



326 THE ABYSMAL MONSTER. 

or the Church has impaired, hopelessly, the will to think in> 
dependently, while the menace of hell fire forever has fright- 
ened the people from new ideas as from poisoned food. 
Moreover, the forcing of impossible and absurd propositions 
upon the intelligence as holy mysteries and as absolutely es- 
sential both to morality and salvation has perverted their 
rationality and left them mere puppets in the hands of their 
exploiters. Flying from one saint to another; seeking now 
the intervention of this Virgin, and now of that; invoking 
to-day one martyr and to-morrow another; on a pilgrimage 
now to one holy relic or grave, and then to another, but al- 
ways with the dead, the poor people have neither the leisure 
nor the taste left for science, the honest study of the laws 
of nature, without a knowledge of which all the supernatu- 
ral powers can be no more than were noise and rattle to us. 
Instead of learning and trying to help himself, the Moham- 
medan or the Catholic is praying to be helped. Petronius 
remarks in one of his letters that there were so many gods 
in Rome that there was no room left for men. In the Catho- 
lic and Moslem countries the gods and departed saints do 
everything, leaving for man only to believe. But there is no 
evidence that the gods have ever hurt a man or ever helped 
him; it is superstition which cramps man's energies, and 
science which expands his mind and trains his hands. A 
people who fear remain children, and without science people 
must ever dwell in fear. 

The northern or protestant nations are not hurt to the 
same extent by their religious beliefs, because their loyalty 
to these beliefs is only nominal. It is a shocking admission 
to make, but it is nevertheless true, that the secret of the 
comparative freedom of protestant peoples from the bad ef- 
fects of their creeds is that they are insincere. The prot- 
estants only profess, while the Mohammedans and Catholics 
believe and tremble. When Bishop Colenso had finished fit- 
ting up a house for a British eighteen-pounder, the Zulus 
who had often heard him preach that they must put their 
ultimate trust in the good God, asked him why he reserved a 
part of his for the English cannon. But that is English; to 
profess faith in God, but to keep close to the cannon. 

James Nasmyth, the founder of the steam hammer, speaks 
of an announcement posted on the walls of Edinburgh streets 
before the day of railroads which illustrates perfectly the 
radical difference between the northern and the southern 
Asiatic mind. The notice read: "The coach would set out 



THE ABYSMAL MONSTER. 327 

from the Grass Market ilka Tuesday at Twa o'clock in the 
day, God Wullin, but whether or no on Wednesday." The 
Protestants intend to let God have his own way until Tues- 
day, but after that they will take the reins in their own 
hands. Their deference to the supernatural is partial and 
insincere and, terrible as it may sound, it is to this fact 
— a fact which makes hypocrites and Pharisees of them, 
that they owe whatever progress they have made in knowl- 
edge and civilization 

It would never have entered the mind of a Moslem that he 
would start on a journey on Tuesday, God willing, but 
whether or no, on Wednesday — he is too much of a slave 
and a coward for that; he is too consistent, and that is why 
he remains a fool. A stupid people are worse than an insin- 
cere, hypocritical people, for while the latter may be con- 
verted to honesty, the former are past redemption. A stupid 
world would be infinitely less interesting even than a wicked 
world, for the one manifests an energy that might 
some day be put to better uses, while the other has 
the smell of the grave about it. It is the inconsistency or 
insincerity of the Protestant, his make-believe loyalty to re- 
ligious dogmas he has imported from Asia, and which are 
alien to his native genius, that enables him to replace in all 
practical affairs, superstition by science and "faith" by a 
scientific force of intelligence which he applies to the prob- 
lems of life. But even the orthodox Catholic and the Mos- 
lem are not free from religious insincerity altogether. So 
long as religious practices and dogmas refuse to respect the 
rights of reason, hypocrisy, insincerity and inconstancy will 
continue to taint the thought and conduct of a people how- 
ever submissive. 

It is a pity that I am compelled to say that I would rather 
have my neighbor insincere than orthodox. Heavens! if he 
really believed in all his dogmas and made an effort to live 
up to them, and succeeded, the world would not last very 
long. There is to-day such athing as tolerance in the world, 
and human love and sympathy, because the people who be- 
lieve they have the infallible word of God, which alone con- 
tains the truth and without which no one can be saved, do 
not really mean what they say. If people actually believed 
that unbelief was a crime to be punished by eternal torture 
which of us could walk the streets safely? Science, art, 
philosophy and material progress have become possible only 



328 THE ABYSMAL MONSTER. 

through the aging of religion which is no longer young or vig- 
orous or sincere enough to fight or persecute. 

In conclusion, the Turks, seven-eighths of whose life is re- 
ligious, who eat and sleep and trade and fight only "in the 
name of God," and the Catholic nations of Southern Europe 
who have no end of churches and crucifixes, Cararra marble 
Virgins and painted saints, bronze popes, alabaster Christs 
and Madonnas with diamonds for eyes, and who are more in- 
terested in purgatory than in life, are the most backward 
peoples in Christendom. 

To be saved — that is to say, to have the means for a de- 
cent and useful life, ennobled by the untiring pursuit of lib* 
erty and the service of justice and truth — which alone spell 
national progress and happiness — the priest must become a 
teacher, the church a school, and the locust cloud of saints 
and saviors make room for men. 

If my story has given anyone pain to hear, it has given me 
more pain to tell it. "Rough work, iconoclasm," says Oliver 
Wendell Holmes, "but it is the only way to get at the truth." 
To make sport of what my neighbor considers sacred, is far 
from my intention ; but neither can I agree to give my silent 
consent to what I consider degrading superstitions. I must 
respect my neighbor's feelings and not call his gods idols, 
but is he respecting my feelings when he calls his crude and 
unrefined beliefs the only infallible religion in the world to 
reject which is to be a criminal before God and man! I say 
is he respecting my feelings when he denounces me as an in- 
fidel because I cannot conscientiously subscribe to his creed! 

I have spoken in love, in sadness and heaviness of heart 
against ignorant beliefs and practices because they poison 
the air and stifle the breath of humanity and because without 
them the world would be so much clearer and sweeter. 

"Pray not; the darkness will not brighten! 

Ask naught from the silence, for it cannot speak! 

Vex not your mournful minds with pious pains; 

Ah, brothers, sisters! Seek 

Naught from the helpless gods by gift and hymn, 

Nor bribe with blood, nor feed with fruit and cakes; 

Within yourselves deliverance must be sought." 



Invisible Helpers. 



A Lecture Delivered Before a Chicago Audience, by 

C. W. Lead beater, the Great Psychic, 

of London, England, 



GUARDIAN ANGELS— SPECIAL INTERVENTIONS— NA- 
TURE-SPIRITS OR FAIRIES— ADEPTS, OR MASTERS 
OF WISDOM— LIVING AND "DEAD" HELPERS— WHAT 
THE HELPERS CAN DO— HELPING THE "DEAD"— 
HELPING DURING SLEEP. 

To my mind it is one of the most beautiful points about 
our Theosophical teaching that it gives back to a man all 
the most useful and helpful beliefs of the religions which he 
has outgrown. There are many who, though they feel that 
they cannot bring themselves to accept much that they used 
to take as a matter of course, nevertheless look back with a 
certain amount of regret to some of the prettier ideas of 
their mental childhood. They have come up out of the twi- 
light into»fuller light, and they are thankful for the fact, and 
they could not return into their former attitude if they 
would; yet some of ihe dreams of the twilight were lovely, 
and the fuller light seems sometimes a little hard in com- 
parison with its softer tints. Theosophy comes to their 
rescue here, and shows them that all the glory and the 
beauty and the poetry, glimpses of which they used dimly to 
catch in their twilight, exists as a living reality, and that in- 
stead of disappearing before the noonday glow, its splendor 
will be only the more vividly displayed thereby. But our 
teaching gives them back their poetry on quite a new basis — 
a basis of scientific fact instead of uncertain tradition. A 
very good example of such a belief is to be found under our 
title of "Invisible Helpers." There are many graceful tra- 



330 INVISIBLE HELPERS. 

ditions of spiritual guardianship and angelic intervention 
which we should all very much like to believe if we could 
only see our way to accept them rationally, and I hope to- 
night to explain to you that to a very large extent we may 
do this. 

The belief in such interventions is a very old one. Among 
the earliest Indian legends we find accounts of the occa- 
sional appearance of minor deities at critical points in hu- 
man affairs; the Greek epics are full of similar stories, and 
in the history of Rome itself we read how the heavenly 
twins, Castor and Pollux, led the armies of the infant repub- 
lic at the battle of Lake Regillus. In mediaeval days St. 
James is recorded to have led the Spanish troops to victory, 
and there are many tales of angels who watched over the 
pious wayfarer, or interfered at the right moment to protect 
him from harm. "Merely a popular superstition," the supe- 
rior person will say; perhaps, but wherever we encounter a 
popular superstition which is widely-spread and persistent, 
we almost invariably find some kernel of truth behind it — 
distorted and exaggerated often, yet a truth still. And this 
is a case in point. 

GUARDIAN ANGELS. 

Most religions speak to men of guardian angels, who stand 
by them in times of sorrow and trouble; and Christianity was 
no exception to this rule. But for its sins there came upon 
Christendom the blight which by an extraordinary inver- 
sion of truth was called the Reformation, and in that ghastly 
upheaval very much was lost that for the majority of us has 
not even yet been regained. That terrible abuses existed, 
and that a reform was needed in the church I should be the 
last to deny; yet surely the reformation was a very heavy 
judgment for the sins which had preceded it. What is 
called Protestantism has emptied and darkened the world 
for its votaries, for among many strange and gloomy false- 
hoods it has endeavored to propagate the theory that noth. 
ing exists to occupy the infinity of stages between the divine 
and the human. It offers us the amazing conception of a 
constant capricious interference by the ruler of the universe 
with the working of his own laws and the result of his own 
decrees, and this usually at the request of his creatures, 
who are apparently supposed to know better than he what is 
good for them. It would be impossible, if one could ever 
come to believe this, to divest one's mind of the idea that 



INVISIBLE HELPERS. 331 

such interference might be, and indeed must be, partial and 
unjust. In Theosophy we have no such thought, for, as I 
said in a previous lecture, we hold the belief in perfect Di- 
vine justice, and therefore we recognize that there can be 
no intervention unless the person involved has deserved such 
help. Even then, it would come to him through agents, and 
never by direct divine interposition. We know from our 
study, and many of us from our experience also that many 
intermediate stages exist between the human and the di- 
vine. The old belief in angels and archangels is justified by 
the facts, for just as there are various kingdoms below hu- 
manity, so there are also kingdoms above it in evolution. 
We find next above us, holding much the same position with 
regard to us that we in turn hold to the animal kingdom, the 
great kingdom of the devas or angels, and above them again 
an evolution which has been called that of the Dhyan Cho- 
hans (though the names given to these orders matter little) 
and so onward and upward to the very feet of Divinity. All 
is one graduated life, from the Logos Himself to the very 
dust beneath our feet — one long ladder, of which humanity 
occupies only one of the steps. There are many steps below 
us and above us, and every one of them is occupied. It would 
indeed be absurd for us to suppose that we constitute the 
highest possible form of development — the ultimate achieve- 
ment of evolution. The occasional appearance among hu- 
manity of men much further advanced shows us our next 
stage, and furnishes us with an example to follow. Men 
such as the Buddha and the Christ, and many other lesser 
teachers, exhibit before our eyes a grand ideal towards 
which we may work, however far from its attainment we 
may find ourselves at the present moment. 

SPECIAL INTERVENTIONS. 

If special interventions in human affairs occasionally take 
place, is it then to the angelic hosts that we may look as 
the probable agents employed in them? Perhaps sometimes, 
but very rarely, for these higher beings have their own work 
to do, connected with their place in the mighty scheme of 
things, and they are little likely either to notice or to inter- 
fere with us. Man is unconsciously so extraordinarily con* 
ceited that he is prone to think that all the greater powers 
in the universe ought to be watching over him, and ready to 
help him whenever he suffers through his own folly or ignor- 
ance. He forgets that he is not engaged in acting as a 



332 INVISIBLE HELPERS. 

beneficent providence to the kingdoms below him, or going 
out of his way to look after and help the wild animals. 
Sometimes he plays to them the part of the orthodox devil, 
and breaks into their innocent and harmless lives with tor- 
ture and wanton destruction, merely to gratify his own de- 
graded lust of cruelty, which he chooses to denominate 
"sport"; sometimes he holds animals in bondage, and takes 
a certain amount of care of them, but it is only that they may 
work for him — not that he may forward their evolution in the 
abstract. How can he expect from those above him a type 
of supervision which he is so very far from giving to those 
below him? It may well be that the angelic kingdom goes 
about its own business, taking little more notice of us than 
we take of the sparrows in the trees. It may now and then 
happen that a deva becomes aware of some human sorrow 
or difficulty which moves his pity, and he may try to help us, 
just as we might try to assist an animal in distress; but cer- 
tainly his wider vision would recognize the fact that at the 
present stage of evolution such interpositions would in the 
vast majority of cases be productive of infinitely more harm 
than good. In the far-distant past, man was frequently as- 
sisted by these non-human agencies, because then there were 
none as yet among our infant humanity capable of taking the 
lead as teachers; but now that we are attaining our adoles- 
cence, we are supposed to have arrived at a stage when we 
can provide leaders and helpers from among our own ranks. 

NATURE-SPIRITS OR FAIRIES. 

There is another kingdom of nature of which little is 
known — that of nature-spirits or fairies. Here again popu- 
lar tradition has preserved a trace of the existence of an 
order of beings unknown to science. They have been spoken 
of under many names — pixies, gnomes, kobolds, brownies, 
sylphs, undines, good people, etc., and there are few lands in 
whose folk-lore they do not play a part. They are beings 
possessing either astral or etheric bodies, and consequently 
it is only rarely and under peculiar circumstances that they 
become visible to man. They usually avoid his neighbor- 
hood, for they dislike his wild outbursts of passion and de- 
sire, so that when they are seen it is generally in some lone- 
ly spot, and by some mountaineer or shepherd whose work 
takes him far from the busy haunts of the crowd. It has 
sometimes happened that one of these creatures has become 
attached to some human being, and devoted himself to his 



INVISIBLE HELPERS. 333 

service, as will be found in stories of the Scottish Highlands ; 
but as a rule intelligent assistance is hardly to be expected 
from entities of this class. 

ADEPTS, OR MASTERS OF WISDOM. 

Then there are the great adepts, the Masters of Wisdom — 
men like ourselves, yet so much more highly evolved that to 
us they seem as gods in power, in wisdom and in compas- 
sion. Their whole life is devoted to the work of helping evo- 
lution; would they therefore be likely to intervene some, 
times in human affairs? Possibly occasionally, but only 
very rarely, because they have other and far greater work 
to do. The ignorant sometimes have suggested that the 
Adepts ought to come down into our great towns and suc- 
cor the poor — the ignorant, I say, because only one who is 
exceedingly ignorant and incredibly presumptuous would 
ever venture to criticise thus the action of those so infinitely 
wiser and greater than himself. The sensible and modest 
■man would realize that what they did they must have good 
reason for doing, and that for him to blame them would be 
the height of stupidity and ingratitude. They have their 
own work, on planes far higher than we can reach; they 
deal directly with the souls of men, and - shine upon them as 
sunlight upon a flower, drawing them upwards and onwards, 
and filling them with power and life; and that is a grander 
work by far than healing or caring for or feeding their bod- 
ies, good though this also may be in its place. To employ 
them in working on the physical plane would be a waste of 
force infinitely greater than it would be to set our most 
learned men of science to the labor of breaking stones upon 
the road, upon the plea that that was a physical work for the 
good of all, while scientific work was not immediately profit- 
able to the poor! It is not from the Adept that physical in- 
tervention is likely to come, for he is far more usefully em- 
ployed. 

LIVING AND "DEAD" HELPERS. 

There are two classes from whom it does come, and in 
both cases they are men like ourselves, and not far removed 
from our own level. The first class consists of those whom 
we call dead. We think of them as far away, but that is a 
delusion; they are very near us, and though in their new 
life they cannot usually see our physical bodies, they can and 
do see our astral vehicles, and therefore they know all our 



334 INVISIBLE HELPERS. 

feelings and emotions. So they know when we are in 
trouble, and when we need help, and it sometimes happens 
that they are able to give it. Here, then, we have an enor- 
mous number of possible helpers, who may occasionally in. 
tervene in human affairs. Occasionally, but not very often; 
for the dead man is all the while steadily withdrawing into 
himself, and therefore passing rapidly out of touch with 
earthly things ; and the most highly developed, and therefore 
the most helpful of men are precisely those who must pass 
away from earth most quickly. Still there are undoubted 
cases in which the dead have intervened in human affairs; 
indeed, perhaps such cases are more numerous than we im- 
agine, for in very many of them the work done would be only 
the putting of a suggestion into the mind of some person still 
living on the physical plane, and he might well remain uncon- 
scious of the source of his happy inspiration. Sometimes, 
but comparatively rarely, it is necessary for the dead man's 
purpose that he should show himself, and it is only then that 
we who are so blind are aware of his loving thought for us. 
Besides, he cannot always show himself at will; there may 
be many times when he tries to help, but is unable to do so, 
and we all the time know nothing of his offer. Still there 
are such cases, and some of them will be found recounted in 
my book on "The Other Side of Death." 

The second class among which helpers may be found con- 
sists of those who are able to function consciously upon the 
astral plane while still living — or perhaps we had better say, 
while still in the physical body, for the words "living" and 
"dead" are in reality ludicrously misapplied in ordinary par- 
lance. 

It is we, immeshed as we are in this physical matter, buried 
in the dark and noisome mist of earth-life, blinded by the 
heavy veil that shuts out from us so much of the light and 
the glory that are shining around us — it is surely we who are 
the dead; not those who, having cast off for the time the 
burden of the flesh, stand amongst us radiant, rejoicing, 
strong, so much freer, so much more capable than we. 

These who, while still in the physical world, have learnt 
to use their astral bodies, and in some cases their mental 
bodies also, are usually the pupils of the great Adepts be- 
fore-mentioned. They cannot do the work which the Master 
does, for their powers are not developed; they cannot yet 
function freely on those lofty planes where he can produce 



INVISIBLE HELPERS. 335 

such magnificent results ; but they can do something at lower 
levels, and they are thankful to serve in whatever way he 
thinks best for them, and to undertake such work as is with- 
in their power. So sometimes it happens that they see some 
human trouble or suffering which they are able to alleviate, 
and they gladly try to do what they can. They are often 
able to help both the living and the dead, but it must always 
be remembered that they work under conditions. When 
such power and such training are given to a man, they are 
given to him under restrictions. He must never use them 
selfishly, never display them to gratify curiosity, never em- 
ploy them to pry into the business of others, never give 
what at Spiritualistic seances are called tests — that is to say, 
he must never do anything which can be proved as a phe- 
nomenon on the physical plane. He might if he chose take 
a message to a dead man, but it would be beyond his prov- 
ince to bring back a reply from the dead to the living, unless 
it were under direct instructions from his Master. Thus 
the band of invisible helpers does not constitute itself into 
a detective office, nor into an astral information bureau, but 
it simply and quietly does such work as is given to it to do, 
or as comes in its way. 

Sometimes people have thought that to give help in this 
way might be wrong, lest one should interfere with the work- 
ing of the great law of Divine Justice. That is indeed a 
strange idea — to suppose that man could interfere with the 
Law. We all know how it often happens that we try with all 
our strength to help some fellow-man, yet we are unable to 
do any real good to him. There is clearly a case in which it 
was not in the man's destiny that he should be helped, and 
so it was not possible to do anything for him. Even then our 
effort has not been lost, though it has not produced precisely 
the effect that we intended. The attempt has still done 
great good to us, and we may be sure that it has also done 
something for him whom we tried to help, though what we 
wished could not be achieved just as we wished it. It is 
quite true that none can suffer except by his own fault, and 
that in every sorrow he is working out the result of some 
crime of long ago. But that is no reason for any relaxation 
of our effort to help him. For anything that we know, he 
may just have come to the end of the necessary suffering, 
he may just have paid his debt, and may be just at the point 
where a helping hand can lift him out of the mire of de- 



336 INVISIBLE HELPERS. 

pression. Why should not ours be the hand to do the good 
deed? We need never have the slightest fear that our puny 
attempts will interfere with Nature's laws or cause the least 
embarrassment to those who administer them. 

Let us see how a man is able to do such work and give 
such help as we have described, so that we may understand 
what are the limits of this power, and see how we ourselves 
may to some extent attain it. We must first think how a 
man leaves his body in sleep. He abandons the physical 
body, in order that it may have complete rest; but he him- 
self, the soul, needs no rest, for he feels no fatigue. It is 
only the physical body that ever becomes tired. When we 
speak of mental fatigue, it is in reality a misnomer, for it is 
the brain and not the mind that is tired. In sleep, then, the 
man is simply using his astral body instead of his physical, 
and it is only that body that is asleep, not the man himself. 
If we were to examine a sleeping savage with clairvoyant 
sight, indeed, we might probably find that he was nearly as 
much asleep as his body — that he had very little definite 
consciousness in the astral vehicle which he would be inhab- 
iting. He would be unable to move away from the immedi- 
ate neighborhood of the sleeping physical body, and if an at- 
tempt were made to draw him away he would wake in terror. 

If we examine a more civilized man, as for example one of 
ourselves, we shall find a very great difference. In this 
case the man in his astral body will be by no means uncon- 
scious, but quite actively thinking. Nevertheless, he may be 
taking very little more notice of his surroundings than the 
savage, though not at all for the same reason. The savage 
was incapable of seeing; the civilized man is so wrapped up 
in his own thought that he does not see, though he could. 
He has behind him the immemorial custom of a long series 
of lives in which the astral faculties have not been used, 
for these faculties have been gradually and slowly growing 
iDside a shell, something as a chicken grows inside the egg. 
The shell is composed of the great mass of self -centered 
thought in which the ordinary man is so hopelessly en- 
tombed*. Whatever may have been the thoughts chiefly en- 
gaging his mind during the past day, he usually continues 
them when falling asleep, and he is thus surrounded by so 
dense a wall of his own making that he practically knows 
nothing of what is going on outside. Occasionally, nut very 
rarely, some violent impact from without, or some strong 
desire of his own from within, may tear aside this curtain of 



INVISIBLE HELPERS. 337 

mist for the moment and permit him to receive some definite 
impression; but even then the fog closes in again almost im- 
mediately, and he dreams on unobservantly as before. 

Can he be awakened, you will say? Yes, that may happen 
to him in four different ways. First, in the far-distant 
future the slow but sure evolution of the man will undoubt- 
edly gradually dissipate the curtain of mist. Secondly, the 
man himself, having learnt the facts of the case, may by 
steady and persistent effort clear away the mist from within, 
and by degrees overcome the inertia resulting from ages of 
inactivity. He may resolve before going to sleep to try when 
he leaves his body to awaken himself and see something. 
This is merely a hastening of the natural process and there 
will be no harm in it if the man has previously developed 
common sense and the moral qualities. If these are defect- 
ive, he may come very sadly to grief, for he runs the double 
danger of misusing such powers as he may acquire, and of 
being overwhelmed by fear in the presence of forces which 
he can neither understand nor control. Thirdly, it has some- 
times happened that some accident, or some unlawful use 
of magical ceremonies, has so rent the veil that it can never 
wholly be closed again. In such a case the man may be left 
in the terrible condition so well described by Madame Bla- 
vatsky in her story of "A Bewitched Life," or by Lord Lytton 
in his powerful novel "Zanoni." Fourthly, some friend who 
knows the man thoroughly, and believes him capable of 
facing the dangers of the astral plane and doing good un- 
selfish work there, may act upon this cloud-shell from with- 
out and gradually arouse the man to his higher possibilities. 
But he will never do this unless he feels absolutely sure of 
him, of his courage and devotion and of his possession of 
the necessary qualifications for good work. If he should in 
all these ways be judged satisfactory, he may thus be in- 
vited and enabled to join the band of helpers. 

WHAT HELPERS CAN DO. 

Now as to the work that such helpers can do. I have given 
many illustrations of this in the little book whlcn I have 
written, bearing the same title as this lecture, so I will not 
repeat those stories now, but rather give you a few leading 
ideas as to the different types of work which are most usu- 
ally done. Naturally it is of varied kinds, and most of it is 
not in any way physical; perhaps it may best be divided into 
work with the living, and work with the dead. 



338 INVISIBLE HELPERS. 

The giving of comfort and consolation in sorrow or sick- 
ness at once suggests itself as a comparatively easy task, 
and one that could constantly be performed without anyone 
knowing who did it. Then it often happens that persons are 
in some perplexity, that they go to sleep at night with some 
unsolved problem in their minds; and in such a case a solu- 
tion may sometimes be suggested, or they may be helped to 
a right decision. Not that anything may ever be done to 
bias or influence the mind of any person; we must not think 
of the helper as a mesmerist. It would be easier than you 
could possibly imagine for him to influence almost any mind 
in any direction he wished, yet to do so would be a violation 
of one of the strictest rules of his work. He may present his 
case to the mind of the man who is in doubt; he may state 
his opinion and argue in favor of it; but he must never ex- 
ercise his will-power to force the man to yield, even though 
he may be well aware that disaster will follow if his counsel 
is not accepted. But there are many earnest seekers who 
are really anxious for light, and to give them as much as 
they are able to bear is one of the greatest pleasures of the 
helper. Suggestions may be made, and constantly are made 
to writers, preachers, poets, artists, as to the subjects they 
should take, or the way in which they should treat them— 
of course without any knowledge on the part of the recipi- 
ent of the source of his inspiration. Indeed, he usually 
thinks himself a very clever fellow to have such new and 
original ideas; but that does not matter in the least, for no 
helper wishes to take credit for anything that he does. If 
he had such a feeling of self-glorification, he would be quite 
unfit for the position of a helper. Many and many a time 
has such a helper stood beside a preacher or a writer, and 
put before his mind a somewhat wider or more liberal view 
of his subject than he had had previously; and though some- 
times it is impossible to get this accepted, yet in most cases 
at any rate something of it comes through to the physical 
plane. 

Often efforts are made to patch up quarrels — to effect a 
reconciliation between those who long have been separated 
by some difference of opinions or of interests. Sometimes it 
has been possible to warn men of some great danger which 
impended over their heads, and thus to avert an accident. 
There have been cases in which this has been done even 
with regard to a purely physical matter, though more gener- 



INVISIBLE HELPERS. 339 

ally it is against the moral danger that such warnings are 
given. Occasionally, though rarely, it has been permissible 
to offer a solemn warning to one who was leading an im- 
moral life, and so to help him back into the path of rectitude. 
If they happen to know of a time of special trouble for a 
friend, they will endeavor to stand by him through it, and to 
give him strength and comfort. 

In great catastrophes, too, there is often much that can be 
done by those whose work is unrecognized by the outer 
world. Sometimes it may be permitted that some one or 
two persons may be saved ; and so it comes that in accounts 
of terrible wholesale destruction we hear now and then of 
escapes which are esteemed miraculous. But this is only 
when among those who are in danger there is one who is not 
to die in that way — one who owes to the divine law no debt 
that can be paid in that fashion. In the great majority of 
cases all that can be done is to make some effort to impart 
strength and courage to face what must happen, and then 
afterwards to meet the souls as they arrive upon the astral 
plane, and welcome and assist them there. 

HELPING THE "DEAD." 

This brings us to the consideration of what is by far the 
greatest and most important part of the work — the helping 
of the dead. Before we can understand this we must throw 
aside altogether the ordinary clumsy and erroneous ideas 
about death and the condition of the dead. They are not 
far away from us, they are not suddenly entirely changed, 
they have not become angels or demons. They are just hu- 
man beings, exactly such as they were before, neither betteF 
nor worse, and they stand close by us still, sensitive to our 
feelings and our thoughts even more than of yore. We 
must get rid of that strange old delusion that the dead man's 
fate is somehow sealed, and that nothing more can now 
be done for him. There are absolutely, strange as it may 
seem, hundreds of people who really believe that while thev 
may think of and pray for their friends while they are in 
physical life, the moment those friends are dead it becomes 
not only useless but even wicked to pray for them or think 
lovingly of them. It may well seem incredible that any hu- 
man being can hold such an insane doctrine, yet it is as- 
suredly a fact that there are still in this twentieth century 
those who are hide-bound by this strange superstition. The 
truth is exactly the opposite, for it is precisely when he is 



340 INVISIBLE HELPERS. 

dead that the man can most easily feel and profit by the 
good and loving thoughts and prayers of his friends. He 
has not then the heavy physical body to shut him away from 
sympathy with them ; he is living in the astral body, which is 
the very vehicle of emotion, and so he feels every touch of it 
and instantly responds to it. That is why uncontrolled 
grief for the dead is so wrong as well as so selfish. The 
dead man feels every emotion which passes through the 
heart of his loved ones and if they uncomprehendingly give 
way to sorrow, that throws a corresponding cloud of depres- 
sion over him, and makes his way harder than it need be if 
his friends had been better taught. 

So there is much help that may be given to the dead in 
very many ways. First of all, many of them — indeed, most 
of dthem — need much explanation with regard to the new 
world in which they find themselves. Their religion ought 
to have taught them what to expect, and how to live amid 
these new conditions ; but in most cases it has not done any- 
thing of the kind. The hideous falsehoods circulated so in- 
dustriously with regard to hell-fire and other theological hor- 
rors do far more injury on the other side of the grave even 
than they do on this — and that is saying a great deal, for 
even on this plane they are the curse of many lives. Once 
more, though to a reasoning being it may seem incredible, 
there really are people who do believe this grotesque and 
cruel absurdity. They have been taught that unless they 
were superhumanly good (and they generally realize that 
they have not been that) they were in danger of a sulphure- 
ous future; and often there were also impossible conditions 
of faith attached to "salvation" which they can never be sure 
that they have perfectly fulfilled. So it comes that very 
many of them are in a condition of considerable uneasiness, 
and others of positive terror. They need to be soothed and 
comforted, for when they encounter the dreadful thought- 
forms which they and their kind have been making for cen. 
turies — thoughts of a personal devil and an angry and cruel 
deity — they are often reduced to a pitiable state of fear, 
which is not only exceedingly unpleasant, but very bad for 
their evolution; and it often costs the helper much time and 
trouble to bring them into a more reasonable frame of mind. 

There are men to whom this entry into a new life seems 
to give for the first time an opportunity to see themselves as 
they really are, and some of them are therefore filled with 
remorse. Here again the helper's services are needed to ex- 



INVISIBLE HELPERS. 341 

plain that what is past is past, and that the only effective re- 
pentance is the resolve to do this thing no more — that what- 
ever he may have done, he is not a lost soul, but that he 
must simply begin from where he finds himself, and try to 
live the true life for the future. Some of them cling pas- 
sionately to earth, where all their thought and interest have 
been fixed, and they suffer much when they find themselves 
losing hold and sight of it. Others are earth-bound by the 
thought of crimes that they have committed, or duties that 
they have left undone, while others in turn are worried about 
the condition of those whom they have left behind. All these 
are cases which need explanation, and sometimes it is also 
necessary for the helper to take steps on the physical plane 
in order to carry out the wishes of the dead man, and so 
leave him free and untroubled to pass on to higher matters. 
People are inclined to look at the dark side of Spiritualism; 
but we must never forget that it has done an enormous 
amount of good in this sort of work — in giving to the dead an 
opportunity to arrange their affairs after a sudden and un- 
expected departure. 

A man may sometimes be rescued from evil companions 
after death, just as he may be during life. Men are of all 
types, and there are those who, instead of feeling remorse 
about their evil deeds, endeavor as far as they can to resume 
or to continue them. The man who has haunted dens of vice 
during life not infrequently continues to do so after his loss 
of the physical body. Definite teaching of all sorts may be 
given to the dead, which will be of the greatest use to him, 
not only with regard to the life which he is then living, but 
with regard to his whole future in lives yet to come. I know 
how hard it is for many of you to grasp the reality of the 
thing, to understand how near to us the dead are, and how 
completely the helper can speak to them and deal with them 
as though they were still physical. Many people feel it to be 
impossible, and they ask us for proof that it is so. I do not 
know how you can obtain proof except by studying these mat- 
ters for yourselves, by examining patiently the evidence, and, 
ultimately, by developing in yourselves the power to see and 
hear all this for yourselves. Those of us to whom all this 
is a matter of daily experience hardly care to argue about it. 
If a blind man came up to you and earnestly tried to per- 
suade you that there was no such thing as sight, and that if 
you believed that you saw, you were suffering under an un- 



342 INVISIBLE HELPERS. 

fortunate hallucination, you would be polite to him, but you 
would not feel anxious to waste much time in arguing with 
him. You would say, "I do see, and daily experience shows 
me that I do ; another man's belief or unbelief does not affect 
the fact." I think the skeptic sometimes forgets that we are 
not proselytizing, and that if he cannot believe, no one but 
himself is the loser. 

It is a fact, then, that much direct teaching can be given 
the dead. He will not carry over details into his next earth- 
life, but he will nevertheless have the knowledge stored up 
in his soul, so that when it is next presented to him on the 
physical plane, he will at once grasp it, and intuitively recog- 
nize that it is true. Another point is that of the rearrange- 
ment of the astral body by the desire-elemental; I have no 
time to go into the detail of that process now, but it is one 
which retards the man's progress in the after-death states, 
and the helper can show him how to avoid its difficulties. 

HELPING DURING SLEEP. 

It is surely a happy thought that the time of much-needed 
repose for the body is not necessarily a period of inactivity 
for the true man within. I used at one time to feel that the 
time given to sleep was sadly wasted time; now I understand 
that Nature does not so mismanage her affairs as to lose one- 
third of the man's life. Of course there are qualifications 
required for this work; but I have given them so carefully 
and at length in my little book on the subject that I need 
only just mention them here. First, he must be one-pointed, 
and the work of helping others must be ever the first and 
highest duty for him. Secondly, he must have perfect self- 
control — control over his temper and his nerves. He must 
never allow his emotions to interfere with his work in the 
slighest degree; he must be above anger, and above fear. 
Thirdly, he must have perfect calmness, serenity and joy- 
ousness. Men subject to depression and worry are useless, 
for one great part of their work would be to soothe and to 
calm others, and how could they do that if they were all the 
time in a whirl of excitement or worry themselves? 
Fourthly, the man must have knowledge; he must have al- 
ready learnt down here on this plane all that he can about 
the other, for he cannot expect that men there will waste 
valuable time in teaching him what he might have acquired 
for himself. Fifthly, he must be perfectly unselfish. He 
must be above the foolishness of wounded feelings, and must 



INVISIBLE HELPERS. 343 

think not of himself but of the work that he has to do, so 
that he will be glad to take the humblest duty without con- 
ceit or envy. Sixthly, he must have a heart filled with love- 
not sentimentalism but the intense desire to serve, to be- 
come a channel for that love of God which, like the peace oil 
God, passeth man's understanding. 

You may think that this is an impossible standard; on the 
contrary, it is attainable by every man. It will take time to 
reach it, but assuredly it will be time well spent. Do not 
turn away disheartened, but set to work here and now, and 
strive to become fit for this glorious task, and while we are 
striving, do not let us wait idly, but try to undertake some 
little piece of work along the same lines. Every one knows 
some case of sorrow or distress, whether among the living 
or the dead does not matter; if you know such a case, take 
it into your mind when you lie down to sleep, and resolve as 
soon as you are free from this body to go to that person and 
endeavor to comfort him. You may not be conscious of the 
result, you may not remember anything of it in the morning ; 
but be well assured that your resolve will not be fruitless, 
and that whether you remember what you have done or not, 
you will be quite sure to have done something. Some day 
sooner or later you will find evidence that you have been 
successful. Remember that as we help, we can be helped; 
remember that from the lowest to the highest we are bound 
together by one long chain of mutual service, and that 
although we stand on the lower steps of the ladder, it reaches 
up above these earthly mists to where the light of God is 
always shining. 



Clairvoyance- -What It Is. 

A Lecture Delivered Before a Chicago Audience, by 

C. W. Leadbeater, the Great Psychic, 

of London, England, 



NOTHING UNCANNY ABOUT CLAIRVOYANCE— UN- 
SEEN WORLD ALL AROUND US— VIBRATIONS— 
ETHERIC PHYSICAL MATTER— THE ASTRAL LIGHT 
—VISIONS PRESENTED TO DIFFERENT PERSONS- 
CONDITIONS OF PHYSICAL MATTER— FOUR-DI MEN- 
SIONAL SIGHT— SUPERIOR REALITY OF THE 
HIGHER WORLD. 

Clairvoyance is in its origin a French word, signifying sim- 
ply "clear seeing," and is properly applied to a certain power 
or faculty possessed by some men which enables them to 
see more in various ways than others see, as I shall pres- 
ently explain. The word has been terribly misused and de- 
graded, so that it probably presents to your mind a number 
of ideas of a most unpleasant kind, from which you must 
free yourselves if you wish to understand what it really is. 
The term has been employed to designate the tricks of a 
mountebank at a fair, or the arts whereby an advertising for- 
tune-teller swindles his dupes; yet in spite of all these un- 
savory associations it does nevertheless represent a great 
fact in Nature, and it is of that fact that I wish to speak. It 
has sometimes been denned as "spiritual vision," but in The- 
osophy we restrict the use of the word spirit to the very 
highest that exists in man, and nothing which is commonly 
called clairvoyance reaches anywhere near that altitude. 
For our present purposes, then, let us define it as the power 
to see realms of nature as yet unseen by the majority. 



CLAIRVOYANCE— WHAT IT IS. 345 

I am not seeking to convince skeptics that there is such a 
thing as clairvoyance. Any one who is still in that condi- 
tion of ignorance should study the literature of the subject, 
which contains an immense mass of evidence on the matter ; 
or, if he prefers it, he may make direct investigations into 
mesmeric phenomena and the occurrences at Spiritualistic 
seances on his own account. I am speaking for the better- 
instructed class of people who have studied the subject 
sufficiently to know that clairvoyance is a fact, and wish to 
understand something of how it works. The first great 
point to comprehend clearly is that there is nothing weird 
or uncanny about it — that it is a perfectly natural power, 
really quite normal to humanity when it has evolved a little 
further, though abnormal to us at present because the ma- 
jority of men have not yet developed it within themselves. 
It is only the few who have it as yet, but undoubtedly all the 
various faculties which are grouped under this head are the 
common property of the human race, and will be evolved in 
every one as time goes on. 

The easiest way to understand it is to look back in thought 
to the earliest of our series of lectures, in which I spoke of 
the various planes of Nature, and the fact that man pos- 
sesses a body corresponding to each of them, by means of 
which he can observe it and receive vibrations and impres- 
sions from it. I explained then that these planes are com- 
posed of matter at different stages of density, and that our 
physical senses can perceive only the lowest of these stages, 
and by no means the whole even of that. Since most of us 
have always lived under the limitations of our physical 
senses, and have not yet caught a glimpse of the higher pos- 
sibilities, it is very hard for us to understand how great those 
limitations are, and to realize what a vast world there is 
which lies beyond our present capacities. 

The majority of men are still in the position of being un- 
able to see the wider world, and so they are very apt to say 
that it does not exist. That is not sensible, but it seems to 
be human nature. If there existed a community of blind 
men — men who had no idea of what was meant by sight, and 
had never even heard of such a faculty, how would they be 
likely to feel with regard to a man who came among them 
and claimed that he could see? They would certainly deny 
that there could be any such faculty, and if he tried to prove 
it to them, though they might not be able to account upon 
their theories for all that he said to them, the one thing cer- 



346 CLAIRVOYANCE— WHAT IT IS. 

tain to their minds would be that there was some trickery 
somewhere, even though they could not quite see where it 
lay! That there might really be a power unknown to them 
would be the very last thing they would be likely to accept. 

It is exactly the same with the world at large with regard 
to clairvoyance. There is a mighty unseen world all round 
us — many worlds in one, indeed, astral, mental and spiritual, 
each with its own inhabitants, though all are still part of this 
wonderful evolution in which we live. There are many men 
now who are able to see this wider life, yet when they speak 
of it to others, when they try to show them how reasonable 
and natural it is, they are constantly met by the same silly 
accusation of imposition and trickery, even though it is quite 
obvious that they have nothing in the world to gain by mak- 
ing their assertions. 

I wish therefore to make it clear from the commence- 
ment that there is no mystery with regard to clairvoyance— 
that, wonderful as its results may appear to the uninitiated, 
it is simply an extension of faculties which we already pos- 
sess, and think that we understand. All impressions of any 
kind that we receive from without come to us by means of 
vibrations of one kind or another. Some are very rapid, as 
are those by which we see; others are comparatively slow, 
like those of sound. Out of all the enormous range of pos- 
sible vibrations very few can affect our physical senses. 
Those which range between 436 billions and 720 billions per 
second impress themselves upon our sense of sight; another 
small group which move much more slowly impress our 
sense of hearing; others, intermediate between the two ex- 
tremes, may be appreciated by our sense of touch as heat- 
rays or rays of electrical action. Some of the slowest of 
those are used by Marconi in his wonderful wireless teleg- 
raphy. But among and between all these, and far away 
above those by which we can see, are myriads of others 
which produce no effect whatever upon any physical sense. 
Two whole octaves, as it were, of such vibrations exist just 
beyond those by which we see, and will impress the sensi-, 
tive plate of a camera; but there are undoubtedly many 
other octaves far beyond these in turn which will not im- 
press the camera. 

You will observe that man cannot possibly see anything 
which does not either emit or reflect that sort of light which 
he can grasp — which comes within the very small set of 
waves that happen to affect him. There may be very many 



CLAIRVOYANCE—WHAT IT IS. 347 

objects in Nature which are capable of reflecting kinds of 
light which we cannot see; and from investigation of a differ- 
ent character we know that there are such objects, and that 
it is these which the clairvoyant sees. It is simply a ques- 
tion, therefore, of training oneself to become sensitive to a 
greater number of vibrations. Now another fact that needs 
to be considered in this connection is that human beings 
vary considerably, though within relatively narrow limits, in 
their capacity of response even to the very few vibrations 
which are within reach of our physical senses. I am not re- 
ferring to the keenness of sight or of hearing that enables 
one man to see a fainter object or hear a slighter sound than 
another; it is not in the least a question of strength of vis- 
ion, but of extent of susceptibility. This is a crucial point 
which any one may test by taking a spectroscope and throw- 
ing by its means, or by any succession of prisms, a long spec- 
trum upon a sheet of white paper, and then asking a number 
of people to mark upon the paper the extreme limits of the 
spectrum as it appears to them. He is fairly certain to find 
that their powers of vision differ appreciably. Some will see 
the violet extending much farther than others; others will 
perhaps see less violet and more at the red end. A few may 
be found who can see farther than ordinary at both ends, and 
these will almost certainly be what we call sensitive people 
— susceptible, in fact, to a greater range of vibrations than 
are most men of the present day. There is just the same va- 
riety with regard to the sense of hearing; and the men who 
can see and hear more than the rest are just so far on the 
way towards clairvoyance or clairaudience. 

You will readily understand that to a man possessing 
wider sight the world would look very different. Even the 
slight extension which the Roentgen rays give causes many 
objects which are opaque to our normal sight to become to 
a considerable extent transparent; imagine how different 
everything would look to a man who had by nature even that 
tiny fragment of clairvoyant power, and then imagine that 
multiplied a hundred fold, and you will begin to have a slight 
conception of what it is to be really clairvoyant. Yet that 
is not a new power, but simply a development of the sight we 
know. Man has within himself etheric physical matter as 
well as the denser kind, and he may learn how to focus his 
consciousness in that, and so receive impressions through it 
as well as through his ordinary senses. A further extension 
of the same idea would bring the astral matter into action, 



348 CLAIRVOYANCE—WHAT IT IS. 

and then further on he would be able to receive his im- 
pressions through even the mental matter. You will see 
that this idea of the possibility of extension is simple enough, 
though it is not so easy to imagine the full extent of the re- 
sults which follow from it. 

It is true that astral sight is not quite the same thing as 
the physical faculty, for it needs no special sense-organ. In 
describing it we have to use the term sight, because that 
gives the nearest thought to the impression which we wish 
to convey; but in reality it is more a sort of cognition, 
which tells us much more than mere sight would tell. The 
man using astral sight does not need to turn his head when 
he wishes to see something which is behind him, for the vi- 
bration can be received by any part of the astral body. One 
point will naturally occur to the novice in these matters — if 
the development of these faculties lies in the future for man, 
their possession by anyone ought to mean that he is highly 
advanced; yet as a matter of fact we find that such powers 
are possessed at least to some extent by many backward 
races, and even by savages, and by the most ignorant people 
among ourselves, whom it is impossible to suspect of any 
sort of advancement. The truth is that, though the faculty 
is there in a way, it is not at all the same thing. There is a 
downward arc in human evolution as well as an upward arc. 
As early as the last root-race psychic faculties were visible 
in man, but in a very vague sort of way, and not fully under 
his control. Then he commenced the development of intel- 
lect, and that for the time overpowered the sensitiveness and 
obscured his other possibilities; but as he evolves he will re- 
cover all, and much more than all, of that earlier faculty, and 
this time he will have it with all the advantage of the intel- 
lectual force behind it, will have it perfectly under control 
and always at his disposal, and will be able to understand 
and to see clearly, instead of vaguely feeling and constantly 
making mistakes One who is properly trained avoids 
those mistakes, because he has been definitely taught to see 
and to accustom himself to judge of what he sees. A baby 
has to acquire by, degrees the power of measuring distance, 
for at first he obviously does not know how far from him are 
the objects which he sees; just in the same way the far more 
complicated process of astral sight needs preparation and 
training, and without that the man is unreliable. Any per- 
son, therefore, who finds such faculties opening within him- 
self should study the subject carefully, and learn 



CLAIRVOYANCE— WHAT IT IS. 349 

■what has happened to other people along the same line, so 
that he may profit by their experience. This caution is es- 
pecially necessary in America, for this is the latest of the 
races, and in it the psychic faculties are already far more 
common than in older countries, so that there most emphat- 
ically these matters should be carefully studied. If a man 
understands all this, he will not be in anyway alarmed or dis- 
turbed by the development of this additional sense, but will 
watch it with interest and calm, critical judgment. The man 
who knows nothing about it is very liable to be frightened, 
to mislead himself, and sadly often to mislead others also. 

How, you will say, does this new sense begin to show it- 
self? Cases differ very much, so that it is hardly possible to 
lay down a general rule. Some people begin by a plunge, 
and under some unusual stimulus become able just for once 
to see some striking vision; and very often in such a case, 
because the experience does not repeat itself, the seer comes 
in time to believe that on that occasion he must have been 
the victim of hallucination. Others begin by becoming inter- 
mittently conscious of the brilliant colors and vibrations of 
the human aura, similar to the illustrations which I give in 
my book on that subject, "Man Visible and Invisible." Yet 
others find themselves with increasing frequency seeing and 
hearing something to which those around them are blind and 
deaf; others again see faces, landscapes or colored clouds 
floating before their eyes in the dark before they sink to 
rest; while perhaps the commonest experience of all is that 
of those who begin to recollect with greater and greater 
clearness what they have seen and heard on the other planes 
during sleep. 

In trying to describe what is really to be seen by means of 
the developed senses, the best plan will perhaps be to con- 
sider first the case of the trained man who has the faculty 
fully at his command, because that will naturally include all 
the partial manifestations of the power which are so much 
more common; and when we have understood the whole, we 
shall easily see where the different parts fall into place. 
Clairvoyant phenomena are numerous and diverse, so that 
we shall need some kind of arrangement or classification in 
order that they may be the more readily intelligible; and I 
believe that our best plan will be to make three broad divis- 
ions — first to consider what would be seen here and now, as 
it were, by any one who had opened the higher sight, without 
taking into account any power that it might give him to see 



350 CLAIRVOYANCE— WHAT IT IS. 

what is going on at a distance, or to look into the past or 
the future. That will make one class, and then secondly we 
can take up clairvoyance in space, or the faculty of seeing 
at a distance, and then thirdly, clairvoyance in time, or the 
power of looking backwards or forwards. 

Our first question then is, supposing that a man suddenly 
opens the inner sight, what more would he see than he sees 
now? Even this we may subdivide into sections. Let us 
commence with the etheric sight only, for that is absolutely 
physical, though the majority have not yet reached it. We 
have very little idea how partial our sight is in connection 
with this present physical plane, without taking any account 
of anything higher for the moment. There are seven condi- 
tions of physical matter, and our sight is able to distinguish 
only two of them, the solid and the liquids — for we can very 
rarely see a true gas, unless like chlorine, it happens to 
have a strong color of its own. All round us is an im- 
mense amount of gaseous and etheric matter of the presence 
of which we are entirely unconscious, so that not only is 
there so very much that we do not see at all, but even that 
which we do see we see so imperfectly. Every collocation of 
physical dense matter contains also much etheric matter, 
but it is only of the former part of it that we know any- 
thing, so defective is our vision. 

To aid us to grasp the practical effect of the extremely 
partial nature of our sight, let us take an illustration which, 
though impossible in itself, may yet be useful to us as sug- 
gesting rather startling possibilities. Suppose that instead 
of the sight which we now possess, we had a visual appar- 
atus arranged somewhat differently. In the human eye we 
have both solid and liquid matter; suppose that both these 
orders of matter were capable of receiving separate impres- 
sions, but each only from that type of matter in the outside 
world to which it corresponded. Suppose also that among 
men some possessed one of these types of sight and some the 
other. Consider how very curiously imperfect would be the 
conception of the world obtained by each of these two types 
of men. Imagine them as standing on the sea shore; one, 
being able to see solid matter, would be utterly unconscious 
of the ocean stretched before him, but would see instead the 
vast cavity of the ocean bed, with all its various inequalities, 
and the fishes and other inhabitants of the deep would ap- 
pear to him as floating in the air above this enormous valley. 
If there were clouds in the sky they would be entirely invis- 



CLAIRVOYANCE— WHAT IT IS. 351 

ible to him, since they are composed of matter in the liquid 
state; for him the sun would always be shining in the day- 
time, and he would be unable to comprehend why, on what 
is to us a cloudy day, its heat should be so much diminished ; 
if a glass of water were offered to him, it would appear to 
him to be empty. 

Contrast with this the appearance which would be pre- 
sented before the eyes of the man who saw only matter in 
the liquid condition. He would indeed be conscious of the 
ocean, but for him the shore and the cliffs would not exist; 
he would perceive the clouds very clearly, but would see al- 
most nothing of the landscape over which they were mov* 
ing. In the case of the glass of water he would be entirely 
unable to see the vessel, and therefore could not understand 
why the water should so mysteriously preserve the special 
shape given to it by the invisible glass. Imagine these two 
persons standing side by side, each describing the landscape 
as he saw it, and each feeling perfectly certain that there 
could be no other kind of sight but his in the universe, and 
that any one claiming to see anything more or anything dif- 
ferent must necessarily be either a dreamer or a deceiver! 

We can smile over the incredulity of these imaginary ob- 
servers; but it is exceedingly difficult for the average man to 
realize that, in proportion to the whole that is to be seen, 
his power of vision is very much more imperfect than either 
of theirs would be in relation to the world as he sees it. And 
he also is strongly disposed to hint that those who see a lit- 
tle more than he does must really be drawing upon their im- 
agination for their alleged facts. It is one of the common- 
est of our mistakes to consider that the limit of our power 
of perception is also the limit of all that there is to perceive. 
Yet the scientific evidence is indisputable, and the infinitesi- 
mal proportion (as compared with the whole) of the groups 
of vibrations by which alone we can see or hear is a fact 
about which there can be do doubt. The clairvoyant is sim- 
ply a man who develops within himself the power to respond 
to another octave out of the stupendous gamut of possible vi- 
brations, and so enables himself to see more of the world 
around him than those of more limited perceptions. 

If then a man has developed within himself the etheric 
sight, what difference will it make in the appearance of his 
surroundings? Perhaps what would first strike him would 
be the comparative transparency of everything. Most matter 
is opaque to our ordinary sight, but to him it would be 



352 CLAIRVOYANCE— WHAT IT IS. 

merely like a faint mist, through which he could see to a con- 
siderable distance. One can see that this would make a good 
deal of difference to the appearance of the world. Then in 
looking at his friends he would see their etheric bodies as 
well as the denser portion of their physical vehicles ; and in 
this latter part he would be able to observe the structure of 
the internal organs, and so could diagnose some of their dis- 
eases — obviously a valuable faculty for the physician who is 
fortunate enough to acquire it. The etheric double would 
not be especially prominent to his sight, because it so nearly 
coincides with the denser matter; but if he attended a Spir- 
itualistic seance, he would be able to see the etheric matter 
pouring out from the side of the medium when any physical 
phenomena took place. There is a book published by one of 
the best of mediums, Mr. William Eglinton, called " 'Twixt 
Two Worlds," in which you will find three very interesting 
pictures illustrating three stages of this process to which I 
am referring. 

Other creatures also he would see — other inhabitants of 
our world which are not visible to ordinary sight, and so are 
not believed to exist by people of materialistic temperament. 
The folk-lore of all countries bears witness to the fact that 
there are spirits of the mountain and the stream, beings in 
the air and in the mines, called by many different names, 
such as fairies, elves, pixies, brownies, undines, sylphs, 
gnomes, good people and other titles, but known to exist and 
occasionally seen by those whose work takes them far away 
from the haunts of men into lonely places, as does that of 
the shepherd or the mountaineer. This is not, as has been 
thought, a mere popular superstition, but has a foundation 
of fact behind it, as most popular superstitions have, when 
properly understood. A whole evening's lecture might 
easily be given "upon these creatures, but I have only time 
now just to mention their existence. Another point that 
could hardly fail to strike the newly-developed clairvoyant is 
the presence of new colors about him — colors to which we 
can put no name, because they are entirely unlike any that 
we know. This is quite natural, for after all color is only a 
rate of vibration, and when one becomes sensitive to new 
rates of vibration new colors must follow. 

Now suppose that our man developed himself so far as to 
have at his command astral senses as well as etheric, what 
would be the principal additions to his world? He would 
find it very different in several ways, not only in that he 



CLAIRVOYANCE— WHAT IT IS. 353 

would see more, but in that the faculty itself is different. 
We have now passed beyond the mere development of the or- 
dinary organ of sight, and are dealing with a faculty which 
needs no organ — a sight which sees all sides of an object at 
once, and can see it as well behind as before. The only way 
in which you can thoroughly understand this sight is by re- 
garding it is four-dimensional, and considering that it gives 
its possessor the same powers with respect to us as we have 
with respect to a two-dimensional being. This study of the 
Fourth Dimension is a most fascinating one, and the best 
way that I know, short of astral sight itself, to enable a per- 
son to grasp fully the capabilities of that higher plane. 
Those who wish to study it more fully will find a chapter 
upon it in the new book which I have just written, called "On 
the Other Side of Death," and that chapter will perhaps 
serve them as an introduction to the more elaborate works 
of Mr. Hinton on the subject. The possession of this extra- 
ordinary and scarcely expressible power must always be 
borne in mind in any attempt to realize the astral plane. It 
lays every point in the interior of every solid body absolutely 
open to the gaze of the seer, just as every point in the inte- 
rior of a circle lies open to the gaze of a man looking down 
upon it. 

Another important point to bear in mind is the superior 
reality of this higher world which is thus opened to the sight 
of the student. It is difficult for us to understand this, be- 
cause we have been so long accustomed to associating the 
idea of reality with what we can see and touch. We feel 
that when we can hold anything in our hands, then we know 
all about it, and cannot be deceived as to its reality. But 
this is just one of our many mistakes, for this very sense of 
touch is one of the most easily deceived of all. If you wish 
to test this for yourselves, let me give you a little example 
from every-day life. Take three bowls of water, one as hot 
as you can bear to touch, another tepid, and the third icy 
cold. Place them before you, and put your right hand into 
the hot water and your left hand into the cold water and 
after allowing them to remain for a few minutes, put them 
both into the tepid water. You will find that at the very 
same moment your right hand will assure you that that 
water is uncomfortably cold, while your left hand will report 
it to the brain as almost too hot to bear! This is a trivial 
instance, but it does show you how little dependence can be 
placed upon the accuracy of the reports of the senses; it 



354 CLAIRVOYANCE— WHAT IT IS. 

does teach us that merely to see or to feel anything is not 
sufficient for perfect knowledge of it. We know that we 
have constantly to correct one sense by another in order to 
obtain anything approaching accurate information. 

If we look at a glass cube, we shall see the further sid% of 
it in perspective — that is, it will appear smaller than the 
nearer side. We know that it is not really so, but that this 
is only an illusion due to our physical limitations. With as- 
tral sight we should see all the sides equal, as we know that 
they really are. Our physical sight does not in reality give 
us any measure of distance; it is only the brain that supplies 
that from its experience. You may see this at once in the 
case of the stars ; none of us can tell by sight whether a star 
is large or small, for what appears a very large and brilliant 
star may seem so only because it is near us, and it may really 
be much smaller than others which to us seem insignificant 
because they are at a much greater distance. It is only by 
scientific methods entirely unconnected with apparent 
brightness that we are able to determine the relative size of 
some of the stars. The astral sight does give us much more 
real information, and as far as it goes it is reliable, so that 
we are in every way justified in speaking of this plane and 
its senses as more real than this. 

This sight will give him who possesses it much informa- 
tion about his fellow-men which would not otherwise be 
within his reach, and that means that he will understand 
them better, and be. able to help them more readily. As he 
looks at his friend, he will see him surrounded by the lumin- 
ous mist of the astral aura, flashing with all sorts of brilliant 
colors, and constantly changing in hue and brilliancy with 
every variation of that friend's thoughts and feelings. A 
great deal would be shown to him by those colors which is 
hidden from him now. Strictly speaking, all thought should 
belong to the mental plane; but whenever any thought is 
tinged with personality, whenever it is mingled with feeling, 
or connected with the self, it creates vibrations in astral 
matter as well as in mental, and so shows itself in the astral 
body, and would therefore come within the purview of our 
man with astral sight. 

Not only would he thus learn much more about the men 
whom he already knows, but many new forms would come 
into view, for the astral world has its inhabitants just as 
much as the physical. The most important of these from 
our point of view are those whom we ignorantly call the dead 



CLAIRVOYANCE— WHAT IT IS. 355 

— ignorantly, because they are not less alive than we, but 
more. They are as near to us as they ever were, and they 
are using normally and constantly this sight which is as yet 
abnormal to the men still in the physical body. The question 
of life after death ceases to be a question for a clairvoyant; 
it is useless to argue about it, for there are these "dead" 
men, and obviously in full and vivid life. Thus there comes 
to every clairvoyant who has been properly trained the stu- 
pendous advantage of certainty about many of the problems 
which vex the minds of less favored men. The definite 
knowledge that there is a perfect Divine Law of evolution 
and of justice under which every human being is developing 
makes an incalculable difference in a man's life, for even the 
profoundest intellectual conviction falls very far short of the 
precise knowledge gained by direct personal experience. 

If a man is interested enough in this subject to begin to 
study clairvoyance as it is occasionally manifested among 
our fellow-men, he will very rarely find it fully developed. 
The experiences of the untrained clairvoyant — and it must be 
remembered that that class includes practically all the clair- 
voyants of Europe and America, with very few exceptions — 
will usually fall very far short of what I have attempted to 
describe. They will fall short in many different ways — in 
degree, in variety, in permanence, and above all in precision. 
Sometimes a person has temporary flashes of a higher sight 
— sufficient, for example, to see some friend at the moment 
of his death. That particular variety of clairvoyance is gen- 
erally produced by the strong wish on the part of the dead 
man to show himself ohce more as a kind of farewell. That 
strong wish may act in one of two ways; it may enable the 
dead man to materialize, so as to be visible to physical sight, 
or much more usually it acts upon the living person and tem- 
porarily raises his vibrations, so that he is for the moment 
slightly clairvoyant, and thus able to see the astral body of 
his friend. If you will read the books which give instances 
of such cases, you will see how very many there are of them, 
and how indisputable is the evidence for them. I have col- 
lected several good examples in the new book to which I pre- 
viously referred. The same sort of temporary clairvoyance 
comes to some people in sickness, because after long illness 
the insistent physical faculties are usually somewhat weak- 
ened and subdued, and so it is possible for the astral facul- 
ties to enjoy unaccustomed freedom. An extreme example 
of this class is the man who drinks himself into delirium 



356 CLAIRVOYANCE— WHAT IT IS. 

tremens, and in the condition of absolute physical ruin and 
impure psychic excitation brought about by the ravages of 
that fell disease, is able to see for the time some of the 
loathsome elemental and other entities which he has drawn 
round himself by his long course of degraded and bestial in- 
dulgence. 

Some men need mesmerism to subdue their physical 
senses before the other and higher faculties can be opened 
in them. That would mean that their astral faculties are 
capable of action, but not yet strong enough to assert them- 
selves unless the physical can somehow be got out of the 
way. Other men, especially Orientals, use drugs for this 
same purpose; but obviously all these are partial and unsat- 
isfactory methods. I shall deal with this question of how 
the power may be developed in the fourth of these lectures 
on clairvoyance, but even already it must be clear to you that 
the man may gain far wider and fuller control by the exer- 
cise and training of his own will than by adopting unneces* 
sary external substitutes. The subject is well worth our 
study, and it needs much fuller treatment than can be given 
to it in an evening's lecture; those of you who will read the 
book which I wrote about it some four years ago will be able 
from that to fill in many details for which to-night there is no 
time, and I would very urgently beg any who think of ex- 
perimenting or investigating in connection with the matter, 
first to acquaint themselves thoroughly with what their pred- 
ecessors have done, as by doing that they will escape many 
dangers and much disappointment. This is equally neces- 
sary whether a man is trying to develop the faculties within 
himself, or experimenting with others who already possess 
them; he must understand what it is that is being seen, he 
must have in his mind a broad outline of the possibilities, so 
that he may not be deceived or alarmed. By full and careful 
study, he will come to realize how perfectly natural clairvoy- 
ance is; he will comprehend its laws, and learn the necessity 
of submission to them; he will see in vivid colors the dan- 
gers of impurity, and the absolute need of the highest 
thought and noblest intention in the man who touches this 
higher and holier side of human life. Thus he will be led to 
prepare himself by self-control and self-unfoldment to enter 
into the temple of the mysteries, so that his studies may be 
a source of blessing and happiness to himself and to all those 
who are associated with him in them. 



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